\* 
 
 
 ? %■ 
 
 % / 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V" 1 
 
 
 W 
 
 / 
 
 '*<<* 
 ^ 
 
 /': 
 
 
 ft * 
 
 <\ 
 
 
 
&°X 
 
 
 
 » «, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
J A PA 
 
 s 
 
 AND 
 
 THE JAPANESE. 
 
 B T 
 
 RICHARD HILDRETH, 
 
 AUTHOR OP "HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES," ETC. 
 
 : 
 
 REVISED, CORRECTED, AND BROUGHT DOWN TO THE 
 PRESENT TIME, BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 BRADLEY, DAYTON & CO. 
 
 1861. _ 
 
 JAPAN REFERENCE 
 LIBRARY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 
 
 BRADLEY, DAYTON & CO. 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
FEB 1 1943 
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTICE 
 
 In collecting, materials for a biography of the first ex- 
 plorers and planters of New England and Virginia, I was 
 carried to Japan, where I happened to arrive (in the spirit) 
 almost simultaneously with Commodore Perry's expedition. 
 My interest thus roused in this secluded country has pro- 
 duced this book, into which I have put the cream skimmed, 
 or, as I might say, in some cases, the juices laboriously 
 expressed, from a good many volumes, the greater part 
 not very accessible nor very inviting to the general reader, 
 but still containing much that is curious and entertaining, 
 and, to most readers, new; which curiosities, novelties, 
 and palatable extracts, those who choose will thus be enabled 
 to enjoy without the labor that I have undergone in their 
 collection and arrangement — the former, indeed, a labor of 
 love for my own satisfaction ; the latter, one of duty — not 
 to say of necessity — for the pleasure of the reading and 
 book-buying public. 
 
 Instead of attempting, as others have done, to cast into a 
 systematic shape observations of very different dates, I have 
 preferred to follow the historic method, and to let the reader 
 see Japan with the successive eyes of all those who have 
 visited it, and who have committed their observations and 
 reflections to paper and print. The number of these observ- 
 
II ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 ers, it will be found, is very considerable ; while their char- 
 acters, objects and points of view, have been widely different ; 
 and perhaps the reader may reach the same conclusion that 
 I have : that, with all that is said of the seclusion of Japan, 
 there are few countries of the East which we have the means 
 of knowing better, or so well. 
 
 The complete history of the Portuguese, Spanish and 
 Dutch relations with the Japanese is not to be found else- 
 where in English ; nor in any language, in a single work ; 
 while in no other book have the English and American rela- 
 tions been so fully treated. Many extraordinary characters, 
 and adventures make their appearance on th,e scene, and the 
 reader will have no ground to complain at least of want of 
 variety. 
 
 How little the history of Japan and of its former relations 
 with Portugal and Holland are known — even in quarters 
 where information on the subject might be said to constitute 
 an official duty — is apparent in the following passage in a 
 letter addressed from the State department at Washington 
 to the Secretary of the Navy, in explanation of the grounds, 
 reasons and objects, of our late mission to Japan, and intended 
 as instructions to the envoy : " Since the islands of Japan 
 were first visited by European nations, efforts have constantly 
 been made by the various maritime powers to establish com- 
 mercial intercourse with a country whose large population 
 and reputed wealth hold out great temptations to mercantile 
 enterprise. Portugal was the first to make the attempt, and 
 her example was followed by Holland, England, Spain and 
 Russia, and finally by the United States. All these at- 
 tempts, however, have thus far been unsuccessful ; the 
 permission enjoyed' for a short 'period by the Portuguese,, 
 and that granted to Holland to send a?mually a single 
 vessel to the port of Nagasaki, hardly deserving to be con- 
 sidered exceptions to this remark.' ' 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. ni 
 
 In giving Japanese names and words, I have aimed at a 
 certain uniformity ; but, like all other writers on Japan, 
 have failed to attain it. The Portuguese missionaries, or at 
 least their translators into Latin, in representing Japanese 
 names, employed c with the force of k before the vowels a, 
 o, and 7i, and with the force of s before e and i ; which 
 same sound of s, in common with that of ts, they some- 
 times represented by x. In the earlier part of the book I 
 have, in relation to several names known only, or chiefly, 
 through these writers, followed their usage ; though gener- 
 ally, in the representation of Japanese names and words, I 
 have avoided the use of these ambiguous letters, and have 
 endeavored to conform to the method of representing the 
 Japanese syllables proposed by Siebold, and of which an 
 account is given in the Appendix. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP TEE I. 
 
 Earliest European Knowledge of Japan. — Japanese Histories. — Marco Polo's Account of 
 the Mongol or Tartar Invasion. — Accounts of the same Event given by the Chinese and 
 Japanese Annalists. — A. d. 1281 or 1283, 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Portuguese Empire in the East. — Discovery of Japan. — Galvano's Account of it. — Fernam 
 Mendez Pinto's Account of his First Visit to Japan, and Adventures there. — Japanese 
 Account of the Eirst Arrival of Portuguese. — a. d. 1542-5, 20 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Pinto's Second Visit to Japan. — Angiro, or Paul of the Holy Faith. — A. D. 1547—1548, . 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Religious Faith Three Centuries ago. — Zeal of the Portuguese Conquerors. — Antonio Gal 
 vano. — Missionary Seminaries at Ternate and Goa. — Order of the Jesuits. — Francis 
 Xayier. — His Mission to India. — His Mission to Japan. — His Companion, Cosme De 
 Torres. — The Philippine Islands. — a. d. 1542—1550, 41 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Political and Religious Condition of Japan, as found by the Portuguese. — The Jacatas, or 
 Kings, and their Vassals. — Revenues. — Money. — Distinction of Ranks. — The Kubo- 
 Sama. — The Dairi. — Sinto. — Buddhism. — Siuto. — A. d. 1550, 63 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Civilization of the Japanese. — Animals. — Agriculture. — Arts. — Houses. — Ships. — Lit- 
 erature. — Jurisprudence. — Character of the Japanese. — Their Custom of cutting them- 
 selves open. — a. D. 1550, 67 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Preaching of Xavier. — Pinto's Third Visit to Japan. — a. d. 1550—1551, . ... 71 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Progress of the Missions under Fathers De Torres and Nugnez Barreto. — Mendez Pinto a 
 fourth Time in Japan. — a. d. 1561—1567, 7i 
 
 1* 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Loui3 Almeida. — The Missionaries establish themselves at Miako. — Louis Froez. — Princea 
 converted in Ximo. — Rise of Nobunanga. — Prosperity of the Missions. — Noble and 
 Princely Converts. — Nagasaki built. — Nobunanga makes himself Emperor. — a. d. 1557 
 
 — 1577, '. . 79 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Father Valignani. — State of the Missions. — Conversion and Baptism of the King of Bungo. 
 
 — Growth of Nagasaki. — Embassy to the Pope. — Documents relating to this Embassy. 
 A. D. 1577— 1586, 84 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Events meanwhile in Japan. — Downfall of Nobunanga. — Accession of Faxiba, afterwards 
 known as Kambakundono, and, finally, as Taiko-Sama. — Edict against the Jesuits. — 
 Return of the Ambassadors. — A. D. 1582—1588, 95 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Recapitulation. — Extent of the Japanese Empire. — Valignani arrives at Nagasaki. — 
 Progress hitherto of the Catholic Faith. The Emperor's Projects against China. — 
 Valignani's Visit to the Emperor at Miako. — Ucondono. — The returned Japanese Am- 
 bassadors. — Audience given to Valignani. — The Viceroy's Letter. — The Interpreter 
 Rodriguez. — A. D. 1588— 1593, 100 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 New Troubles of the Missionaries from their own Countrymen. — The Emperor claims 
 Homage of the Governor of the Philippines. — Mutual Jealousies of the Portuguese and 
 Spaniards. — Spanish Adventurers in Japan. — The Emperor's Suspicions excited — His 
 Reply to the Viceroy of Goa.— A. D. 1591— 1592, 108 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Expedition against Corea. — The Emperor associates his Nephew. — City of Fusimi. 
 
 — Correspondence of the Emperor with the Governor of Manilla. — The Jesuits denounced 
 by the Spanish Envoys. — Consequences thereof. — Departure of Valignani. — a. d. 
 1592, 112 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Progress of the Corean War. — Success of the Japanese. — Tsukamadono Viceroy of Corea. 
 
 — Edict of the Emperor for disarming the Converts in Ximo. — Disgrace and Downfall of 
 the Royal Family of Bungo. — Terazaba, Governor of Nagasaki. — His Conversion and 
 Friendly Acts. — a. d. 1592—1593, 115 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Jealousy on the part of the Dominicans and Franciscans towards the Jesuits. — This Jeal 
 ousy cooperates with the Mercantile Jealousy of the Spaniards at Manilla. — Franciscan 
 Friars establish themselves at Miako, Osaka and Nagasaki. — Edicts against them. 
 Deposition and Death of the Emperor's Nephew. — A. d. 1593—1595, 117 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Great Earthquake. — Mission from China. — Arrival of a Spanish Galleon. — Friars on 
 board her. — New Accusations on her Account against the Jesuits. — Connecticn of 
 the Jesuits with the Trade to Japan. — Arrest of Missionaries and Converts. — Firs* 
 Martyrs. — a. D. 1595— 1597, 12u 
 
CONTENTS. VIA 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Mew Edict for the Deportation of the Jesuits. — Its Partial Evasion. — New Correspondence 
 between the Philippines and Japan. — Taiko-Sama's Justification of his recent Proceed- 
 ings. — New Destruction of Churches in Xkno. — Taiko-Sama's Death. — His preceding 
 Efforts to secure his own Deification and the Succession of his infant Son Fide Jori. 
 —Regency. — Ge-Jas its Head, with the Title of Daysu-Sama. — A. d. 1597— 1599, .125 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Evacuation of Corea. — Return of the converted Princes. — Favorable Disposition of Daysu- 
 Sama. — Third Visit of Father Valignani. — Civil War between Daysu-Sama and his 
 Co-Regents. — His Triumph. — Disgrace and Execution of Tsukamidono. — Daysu-Sama 
 takes the Title of Ogosho-Sama, and still favors the Converts. — Influx of Dominican and 
 Franciscan Friars — Flourishing Condition of the Church. — Local Persecutions. — A. D. 
 1599—1609, . .' 128 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Attempt of the English and Dutch to discover a New Route to the far East. — Voyages 
 round the World. — Attempted English Voyage to Japan. — English and Dutch Voyages 
 to India. — First Dutch Voyage to Japan. — Adams, the English Pilot. — His Adventures 
 and Detention in Japan. — a. d. 1513 — 1607, 132 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 Spanish Friars in Japan. — Extension of Japanese Trade. — Progress of the Dutch in the 
 Eastern Seas. — They open a Trade with Japan. — Emperor's Letter. — Shipwreck of Don 
 Rodrigo De Vivero on the Japanese Coast. — His Reception, Observations and Departure. 
 — Destruction of a Portuguese Carac by the Japanese. — Another Dutch Ship arrives. — 
 Spex's Charter. — Embassies from Macao and New Spain. — Father Louis Sotelo and his 
 Projects.— a. D. 1607—1618, 140 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Origin and Commencement of English Intercourse with Japan. — Captain Saris' Voyage 
 thither, and Travels and Observations there. — New Spanish Embassy from the Philip- 
 pines. — Commercial Rivalry of the Dutch and English. — Richard Cocks, Head of the 
 English Factory. — A. D. 1611—1613, 160 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Retrospect. — New Persecution. — Edict of Banishment against the Mission 
 aries. — Civil War between Fide Jori and Ogosho-Sama. — Triumph of Ogosho-Sama. — His 
 Death. — Persecution more violent than ever. — Mutual Rancor of the Jesuits and the 
 Friars. — Progress of Martyrdom. — The English and Dutch. — A. D. 1613 — 1620, . . 175 
 
 CHAPTER XXI V. 
 
 Collisions of the Dutch and English in the Eastern Seas — The English retire from Japan. — 
 The Spaniards repelled. — Progress of the Persecution. — Japanese Ports, except Firando 
 and Nagasaki, closed to Foreigners. — Charges in Europe against the Jesuits. — Fathers 
 Sotelo and Collado. — Torment of the Fosse. — Apostasies. — The Portuguese confined to 
 Desima. — Rebellion of Ximabara. — The Portuguese Excluded. — Ambassadors put to 
 Death.— A. d. 1621—1640, 182 
 
 CHAPTER- XXV. 
 
 Micy of the Dutch. — Affair of Nuyts. — Haganaar's Visits to Japan. — Caron's Account 
 of Japan. — Income of the Emperor and the Nobles. — Military Force. — Social and Politi- 
 cal Position of the Nobles. — Justice. — Relation of the Dutch to the Persecution of the 
 Catholics. — The Dutch removed from Firando and confined in Desima. — Attempts of the 
 English, Portuguese and French, at Intercourse with Japan. — Final Extinction of the 
 Catholic Faith. — a. d. 1620— 1707, 193 
 
VIII CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Portuguese Trade to Japan. — Dutch Trade. — Silver, Gold and Copper, the chief Articles of 
 Export. — Export of Silver prohibited. — Chinese Trade. — Its Increase after the Acces- 
 sion of the Mant-chew Dynasty. — Chinese" Temples at Nagasaki. — A Buddhist Doctor 
 from China. — Edict on the Subject of Household Worship. — Restrictions on the Dutch 
 Trade. — Increase in the Number of Chinese Visitors to Nagasaki. . Their Objects. — 
 Restrictions on the Chinese Trade. — The Chinese shut up in a Factory. — Trade with 
 Lew Chew.— A. d. 1542— 1690, . . 206 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 EngelbertKampfer. — His Visit to Japan. — Desima and its Inhabitants as described by him. 
 
 — A. d. 1690, 216 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Particular Statement as to the Dutch Trade as it exisied in Kampfer's Time. — Arrival of the 
 Ships — Unlading. — Passes. — Imports. — Company and Private Goods. — Kambangs, or 
 Public Sales. — Duties — Profits. — Exports. — Departure of the Ships. — Smuggling. — 
 Execution of Smugglers, 241 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Nagasaki and its Vicinity as seen by Kampfer. — Imperial Governors. — Their Officers and 
 Palaces. — Municipal System. — Street Government. — Mutual Responsibility. — Adminis- 
 tration of Justice. — Taxes. — Government of other Towns. — Adjacent Country. — The 
 God Suwa and his Matsuri. — A. d. 1690— 1692, 256 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Kampfer's Two Journeys to Court. — Preparations — Presents. — Japanese Attendants. — 
 Packing the Baggage and Riding on Horseback. — Japanese Love of Botany. — Accou- 
 trements. — Road-Books. — Norimons and Kangos. — A. d. 1690— 1692, 277 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Highways. — Rivers. — Fords. — Perries. — Bridges. — "Water Part of the Journey. — Coast 
 and Islands. — Frail Structure of Japanese Vessels. — Description of them. — Buildings on 
 the Route. — Dwelling-Houses. — Castles. — Towns. — Villages. — Cottages. — Proclama- 
 tion Places. — Places of Execution. — Tiras or Buddhist Temples. — Mias or Sinto 
 Temples. — Idols and Amulets, 288 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Post-Houses. — Imperial Messengers. — Inns. — Houses. — Their Furniture and Interior 
 Arrangements. — Bathing and Sweating House. — Gardens. — Refreshment Houses. — 
 What they Provide. — Tea, 304 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 dumber of People on the Road. — Princely Retinues. — Pilgrims to Isje. — Siunse Pilgrims. 
 
 — Naked Devotions. — Religious Beggars. — Begging Order of Nuns. — Jamabo, or Moun 
 
 tain Priests. — Buddhist Beggars. — Singular Bell-Chiming. — Hucksters and Pedlers 
 
 Courtesans, 314 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 Departure from Nagasaki. — Train of the Dutch. — The Day's Journey. — Treatment of the 
 Dutch. — Respect shown them in the Island of Ximo. — Care with which they are 
 Watched. — Inns at which they Lodge. — Their Reception and Treatment there. — Polite- 
 ness of the Japanese. — Lucky and Unlucky Days. — Seimei, the Astrologer, 32« 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 From Nagasaki to Kokura. — Simonoseki. — Water Journey to Osaka. — Description of that 
 City. — Its Castle. — Interview with the Governors. — From Osaka to Miako. — Jodo 
 and its Castle. — Fusimi. — Entrance into Miako. — Visit to the Chief Justice and the Gov- 
 ernors. -— Description of Miako. — Palace of the Dairi. — Castle. — Manufactures and Trade. 
 
 — Authority of the Chief Justice. — Police. — Crimes, 336 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 Lake Oitz. — Mount Jesan. — Japanese Legends. — A Japanese Patent Medicine. — Quano. 
 
 — Mia. — Array. — Policy of the Emperors. — Kakegawa. — A Town on Fire. — Seruga. 
 
 — Kuno. — Passage of a rapid River. — Fusi-no-jama, or Mount Fusi. — Crossing the 
 Peninsula of Idsu. — Second Searching Place. — Purgatory Lake. — Odawara. — Coast of 
 the Bay of Jedo. — A Live Saint. — Kanagawa. — Sinagawa. — Jedo. — Imperial Castles 
 and Palace, 362 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 Personages to be Visited. — Visit to the Emperor. — First Audience. — Second Audience. — 
 Visits to the Houses of the Councillors. — Visits to the Governors of Jedo and the Temple 
 Lords. — Visits to the Houses of the Governors of Nagasaki. — Audience of Leave. — 
 Return. — Visits to Temples in the Vicinity of Miako. — a. d. 1691—1692, 365 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Further Decline of the Dutch Trade. — Degradation of the Japanese Coins. — The Dutch 
 threaten to withdraw from Japan. — Restrictions on the Chinese Trade, — Probable Cause 
 of the Policy adopted by the Japanese. — Drain of the precious Metals. — New Basis upon 
 which future Trade must be arranged, 1696 — 1750, 383 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 Thunberg's Visit to Japan. — Searches and Examinations. — Smuggling. — Interpreters. — 
 Desima. — Imports and Exports. — Unicorn's Horn and Ginseng. — Soy. — The Dutch 
 at Desima. — Japanese Mistresses. — Japanese Women. — Studying the Language. — 
 Botanizing. — Clocks. — New-Year's Day. — Trampling on Images. — Departure for Jedo. 
 
 — Journey through the Island of Ximo. — Japanese Houses and Furniture. — Manufacture 
 of Paper. — Practice of Bathing. — Simonoseki. — Voyage to Osaka. — Children. — From 
 Osaka to Miako. — Agriculture. — Animals. — A. D. 1775 — 1776, 387 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Japanese Merchants. — Journey from Miako to Jedo. — Botany of the Mountains. — 
 Rainy Weather. — Coverings for the Head and Feet. — Jedo. — Astronomers and Physi- 
 cians. — Acupuncture. — Moxa. — Other Japanese Remedies. — Method of Wearing the 
 Hair. — Visits to the Emperor and his Chief Officers. — Japanese Dress. — Books and 
 Maps. — Succession of Emperors. — Departure from Jedo. — Gnats. — Fire-Flies. — 
 Threshing. — Vegetables and Fruit. — Condition of the Japanese Farmer. — Casting Cop- 
 per. — Actors and Dancers. — Thunberg's Opinion of the Japanese. — a. d. 1775 — 1776, 406 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 Isaac Titsingh. — His Residence in Japan. — Translations from the Japanese. — Annals 
 of the Dairi. — Memoirs of the Siogun. — Liberal Ideas in Japan. — Marriage Ceremonies. 
 
 — Funeral Ceremonies. — Mourning. — Feast of Lanterns. — a. d. 1779 — 1791, . . . 424 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 Exploration of the Northern Japanese Seas. — First Russian Mission to Japan. — ProCuaor- 
 ship of Japanese at Irkutsk. — New Restrictions on the Dutch. — Embarrassment* 
 growing out of the War of the French Revolution. — American Flag a/ Nagasaki. — 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Captain Stewart. — Ingenuity of a Japanese Fisherman. — Heer Doeff, Director at De~ 
 sima. — Suspicious Proceedings- of Captain Stewart. — Russian Embassy. — Klaproth's 
 Knowledge of Japanese. — Doeff's First Journey to Jedo. — Dutch Trade in 1804 and 
 1806. — An American Ship at Nagasaki. — The British Frigate Phaeton. — No ships from 
 Batavia. — The Dutch on Short Allowance. — English Ships from Batavia. — Communica- 
 tion again Suspended. — Dutch and Japanese Dictionary. — Children at the Factory. — 
 .A. d. 1792—1817, 444 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 Qolownin's Capture and Imprisonment. — Conveyance to Hakodade. — Reception 'and Im 
 pi-isonment. — Interpreters. — Interviews with the Governor. — Removal to Matsmai. -- 
 A Pupil in Russian. — A Japanese Astronomer. — Escape and Recapture. — Treatment 
 afterwards. — Savans from Jedo. — Japanese Science. — European News. — A Japanese 
 Free-Thinker. — Soldiers. — Their Amusements. — Thoughts on a "Wedding. — Domestic 
 Arrangements. — New Year. — Return of the Diana. — Reprisals. — A Japanese Mer 
 chant and his Female Friend. — Second Return of the Diana. — Third Return of the 
 Diana. — Interview on Shore. — Surrender of the Prisoners. — Japanese Notification. — 
 The Merchant at Home The Mercantile Class in Japan. — A. d. 1811 — 1815, . . . 460 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 Renewal of the Dutch Trade. — Captain Gordon in the Bay of Jedo. — Fisscher. — Meylan. — 
 Siebold. — British Mutineers. — Voyage of the Morrison. — Japanese Edict. — The Sara- 
 mang at Nagasaki. — The Mercator in the Bay of Jedo. — Commodore Biddle in the Bay 
 of Jedo. — Shipwrecked Americans. — . French Ships of "War at Nagasaki. — The Prebie 
 at Nagasaki. — Surveying Ship Mariner in the Bays of Jedo and Simoda. — New Notifica- 
 tion through the Dutch. — A. d. 1847—1850, 484 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 Foreign Relations. — New Siogun. — Dutch Trade. — Chinese Trade. — American Embassy. 
 
 — Its Object. — Letter to the Emperor. — Perry's First Visit to the Bay of Jedo. — Death 
 of the Siogun. — Perry's Second Visit to the Bay of Jedo. — Negotiation of a Treaty. — 
 The Treaty as agreed to. — Simoda. — Hakodade. — Additional Regulations. — Japanese 
 Currency. — Burrow's Visit to the Bay of Jedo. — Third Visit of the American Steamers, 
 
 — Russian and English Negotiations. — Exchange of Ratifications. — Earthquake, . . 506 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 New Dutch Treaty. — Mr. Harris, American Consul at^imoda. — His convention with 
 the Japanese. — His journey to Jedo. — Second visit to Jedo. — Conditional Treaty. — 
 British Treaty. — French and Russian Treaties. — Japanese Embassy to the United 
 States, 543 
 
 Note A. 
 
 « 
 
 B. 
 
 <( 
 
 C. 
 
 u 
 
 D. 
 
 u 
 
 E. 
 
 " 
 
 F. 
 
 " 
 
 G. 
 
 <( 
 
 H. 
 
 u 
 
 I.- 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 -The Japanese Language and Literature, 553 
 
 -Japanese Names, 560 
 
 -Use of Fire-Arms in the East, 562 
 
 -Fernam Mendez Pinto, 563 
 
 - Earliest English and Dutch Adventures in the East. — Goa, . . . ~. ... . 565 
 -Japanese Daring and Adventure Exterior to the Limits of Japan, 566 
 
 - Products of Japan. — Probable Effect of Opening Japan to Foreign Trade, 
 
 by S. Wells Williams, 568 
 
 -Account of Japan, Chiefly Extracted from Japanese Works, 572 
 
 Omitted Documents, 679 
 
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLIEST EUROPEAN KNOWLEDGE OF JAPAN. JAPANESE HISTORIES. MARCO' 
 
 POLO'S ACCOUNT OP THE MONGOL OR TARTAR INVASION. ACCOUNTS OF 
 
 THE SAME EVENT GIVEN BY THE CHINESE AND JAPANESE ANNALISTS, A. D 
 1281 OR 1283. 
 
 The name Japan, pronounced in the country itself Nipon or 
 Nifon, is of Chinese origin — in the Mandarin dialect Jik-pun, 
 that is, sun-source, or Eastern Country. 
 
 The first account of Japan, or allusion to its existence, to be 
 found in any European writer, is contained in the Oriental Travels 
 of the Venetian, Marco Polo, first reduced to writing in the Latin 
 tongue, about a. d. 1298, while the author was detained a prisoner 
 of war at Genoa. Zipangu, Zipangri, Cyampagu, Cimpagu, as (lif- 
 erent editions of his work have it, is his method of representing 
 the Chinese Jik-pun-quo, sun-source kingdom, or kingdom of 
 the source of the sun. The Japanese chronicles go back for many 
 centuries previous ; but these chronicles seem to be little more 
 than a bare list of names and dates, with some legendary statements 
 interwoven, of which the authority does not appear very weighty, 
 nor the historical value very considerable. 
 
 Marco Polo resided for seventeen years (a. d. 1275 — 1292) at 
 the court of Kublai Khan (grandson of the celebrated Ghingis 
 Khan), and ruler, from a. d. 1260 to a. d. 1294, over the most 
 extensive empire which the world has ever seen. This empire 
 Ktretehed across the breadth of the old continent, from the Japanese. 
 2 
 
14 JAPAN. — A. D. 1281— 1283. 
 
 the Yellow, the Blue and the China Seas (embosoming the Caspian 
 and the Black Seas), to the Levant, the Archipelago, the River 
 Dniester, and beyond it. Not content with having added Anatolia 
 and Russia to the western extremity of this vast kingdom, — the 
 Greek empire being reduced, at this moment, to the vicinage of 
 Constantinople and the western coasts of the Archipelago, — Kublai 
 Khan, after completing the conquest of Southern China, sent an 
 expedition against Japan ; in which, however, the Mongols were no 
 more successful than they had been in their attempts, a few years 
 before, to penetrate through Hungary and Poland (which they 
 overran and ravaged, to the terror of all Europe) into Germany, 
 whence Teutonic valor repelled them. 
 
 The accounts given by Marco Polo, and by the Chinese and 
 Japanese annalists, of this expedition, though somewhat contradic- 
 tory as to the details, agree well enough as to the general result. 
 As Marco Polo's account is shoH, as well as curious, we insert it at 
 length, from the English translation of his travels by Marsden, 
 subjoining to it the statements which we have of the same event 
 derived from Chinese and Japanese sources. We may add . that 
 Columbus was grea+ly stimulated to undertake his western voyages 
 of discovery by the constant study of Marco Polo's travels, confi- 
 dently expecting to reach by that route the Cathay and Zipangu 
 of that author — countries for which he sedulously inquired through- 
 out the Archipelago of the West Indies, and along the southern 
 and western shores of the Caribbean Sea. 
 
 " Zipangu," says Marco Polo. " is an island in the eastern ocean, 
 situated at the distance of about fifteen hundred miles from the 
 main land, or coast of Manj v* It is of considerable size ; its inhab- 
 itants have fair complexions, are well made, and are civilized in 
 their manners. Their religion is the worship of idols. They are 
 independent of every foreign power, and governed only by their 
 own kings. They have gold in the greatest abundance, its sources 
 eing inexhaustible ; but as the king does not allow of its being 
 xported, few merchants visit the country, nor is it frequented by 
 much shipping from other parts. To this circumstance we are to 
 
 * The true distance is about five hundred miles ; but, possibly, by miles 
 Marco Polo may have intended Chinese li, of which there are nearly three in 
 Dur mile. 
 
MARCO POLO'S ACCOUNT OF IT. 15 
 
 attribute the extraordinary richness of the sovereign's palace, accord- 
 ing "to what we are told by those who have access to the place. 
 The entire roof is covered with a plating of gold, in the same 
 manner as we cover houses, or, more properly, churches, with lead. 
 The ceilings of the halls are of the same precious metal ; many of 
 the apartments have small tables of pure gold, considerably thick ; 
 and the windows, also, have golden ornaments. So vast, indeed, 
 are the riches of the palace, that it is impossible to convey an idea 
 of them. In this island there are pearls, also, in large quantities, 
 of a pink color, round in shape, and of great size, equal in value 
 to white pearls, or even exceeding them. It is customary with one 
 part of the inhabitants to bury their dead, and with another part 
 to burn them. The former have a practice of putting one of these 
 pearls into the mouth of the corpse. There are also found there a 
 number of precious stones. 
 
 " Of so great celebrity was the wealth of this island, that a desire 
 was excited in the breast o'f the grand Khan Kublai, now reigning, 
 to make the conquest of it, and to annex it to his dominions. In 
 order to effect this, he fitted out a numerous fleet, and embarked a 
 large body of troops under the command of two of his principal 
 officers, one of whom was named Abbacatan, and the other Vonsan- 
 cin. The expedition sailed from the ports of Zaitun and Kinsai* 
 and crossing the intermediate sea, reached the island in safety ; but, 
 in consequence of a jealousy that arose between the two command- 
 ers, one of whom treated the plans of the other with contempt, and 
 resisted the execution of his orders, they were unable to gain pos- 
 session of any city or fortified place, with the exception of one only, 
 which was carried by assault, the garrison having refused to sur- 
 render. Directions were given for putting the whole to the sword, 
 and, in obedience thereto, the heads of all were cut off except of 
 eight persons, who, by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, consisting 
 
 * Marsden, the English translator and annotator of Marco Polo, supposes 
 that Zaitun was the modern Amoy, and Kinsai either Ning-po or Chusan. 
 The Chinese annalists, on the other hand, seem to make the expedition start 
 from Corea, which is much more probable, as that province is separated from 
 Japan by a strait of only about a hundred miles in breadth. It was by this 
 Cbrean strait, that, three hundred years later, the Japanese retorted this 
 invasion. 
 
16 JAPAN. — A. D. 1281—1283. 
 
 of a jewel or amulet introduced into the right arm, between the skin 
 and the flesh, were rendered secure from the effects of iron either to 
 kill or to wound. Upon this discovery feeing made, they were 
 beaten with a heavy wooden club, and presently died. 
 
 11 It happened, after some time, that a north wind began to blow 
 with great force, and the ships of the Tartars, which lay near the 
 shore of the island, were driven foul of each other. It was deter- 
 mined thereupon, in a council of the officers on board, that they 
 ought to disengage themselves from the land ; and accordingly, as 
 soon as the troops were disembarked, they stood out to sea. The 
 gale, however, increased to so violent a degree, that a number of 
 the vessels foundered. The people belonging to them, by floating 
 upon pieces of the wreck, saved themselves upon an island, about 
 four miles from the coast of Zipangu. The other ships, which, not 
 being so near to the land, did not suffer from the storm, and on 
 which the two chiefs were embarked, together with the principal 
 officers, or those whose rank entitled them to command an hundred 
 thousand or ten thousand men, directed their course homeward, and 
 returned to the grand Khan. Those of the Tartars who remained 
 upon the island where they were wrecked, and who amounted to 
 about thirty thousand men, finding themselves without shipping, 
 abandoned by their leaders, and having neither arms nor provision, 
 expected nothing less than to become captives or to perish ; especially 
 as the island afforded no habitations where they could take shelter 
 and refresh themselves. As soon as the gale ceased, and the sea 
 became smooth and calm, the people from the main island of Zi- 
 pangu came over with a large force, in numerous boats, in order to 
 make prisoners of these shipwrecked Tartars ; and, having landed, 
 proceeded in search of them, but in a straggling, disorderly man- 
 ner. The Tartars, on their part, acted with prudent circumspec- 
 tion ; and, being concealed from view by some high land in the 
 centre of the island, whilst the enemy were hurrying in pursuit of 
 them by one road, made a circuit of the coast by another, which 
 brought them to the place where the fleet of boats was at anchor. 
 Finding these all abandoned, but with their colors flying, they 
 instantly seized them ; and, pushing off from the island, stood for 
 the principal city of Zipangu, into which, from the appearance of 
 the colors, they were suffered to enter unmolested. Here they 
 
MONGOL INVASION. 11 
 
 found few of the inhabitants besides women, whom they retained 
 for their own use, and drove out all others. When the king was 
 apprised of what had taken place, he was much afflicted, and imme- 
 diately gave directions for a strict blockade of the city, which was 
 so effectual that not any person was suffered to enter or to escape 
 from it during six months that the siege continued. At the expi- 
 ration of this time, the Tartars, despairing of succor, surrendered 
 upon the condition of their lives being spared. This event took 
 place in the course of the year 1264." * 
 
 The above account Marco Polo no doubt derived from the Mon- 
 gols, who endeavored, as far as possible, to gloss over with roman- 
 tic and improbable incidents a* repulse that could not be denied. 
 The Chinese annalists, who have no # partiality for their Mongol 
 conquerors, tell a much less nattering story. According to their 
 account, as given by Pere Amiot, in his Memoir es concernant les 
 Ckinois, the fleet consisted of six hundred ships, fitted out in the 
 provinces of Kiang-nan, Fou-kien, Ho-nan and Chan-tong. The 
 army, sailing from Corea, landed first on the island of Kiu-tchi, 
 whence they proceeded to that of Tousima, where they learned that 
 the Japanese had long been expecting them with a great army. 
 On approaching the coast of Japan, they encountered a furious 
 tempest, which sunk their vessels ; so that of the whole army scarcely 
 one or two in every ten persons escaped. 
 
 In the Histoire General de la China, compiled by Father 
 Malela, from Chinese sources, the story is thus told : " The sixth 
 month (1281) Alahan set out on the expedition against Japan ; 
 but scarcely had he reached the port of embarkation when he died. 
 Atahai, appointed to succeed him, did not arrive till the fleet had 
 already set sail. In the latitude of the isle of Pinghou [Firando] it 
 
 * Marsden remarks upon this date as evidently wrong. Indeed, it is given 
 quite differently in different early editions of the travels. Marsden thinks it 
 should be 1281. That is the date assigned to the invasion by the Chinese 
 books. The older Japanese annals place it in 1284. In the chapter of 
 Marco Polo which follows the one above quoted, and which is mainly devoted 
 to the islands of south-eastern Asia, he seems to ascribe to the Japanese the 
 custom of eating their prisoners of war — a mistake which, as his English 
 translator and commentator observes, might easily arise from transferring tc 
 them what he had heard of the savage inhabitants of some of the more 
 southern islands. 
 
 2* 
 
18 JAPAN. — A. D. 1281—1283. 
 
 encountered a violent tempest, by which most of the vessels were 
 driven on shore. The officers, selecting those least damaged, them- 
 selves returned, leaving behind them in that island more than a 
 hundred thousand men. The soldiers, finding themselves thus aban- 
 doned, chose a leader, and set themselves to work to cut down trees 
 to build new vessels, in which to escape. But the Japanese, ap- 
 prised of their shipwreck, made a descent upon the island with a 
 powerful army, and put them to the sword. They spared only ten 
 or twelve thousand Chinese soldiers, of whom they made slaves ; 
 and, of the whole formidable invading army, hardly three persons 
 returned to China." 
 
 Father Gaubil, in his Histoire de la Dynastie des Mongoux, 
 compiled also from Chinese sources, states the number of Chinese 
 and Corean prisoners at eighty thousand, and of the Mongols who 
 were slain at thirty thousand. 
 
 Kampfer, in his elaborate work on Japan, gives the following 
 as from the Japanese chronicles, Nipon Odaiki, and Nipon Okaitzu : 
 "Gronda succeeded his father in the year of Syn-mu 1935, of 
 Christ 1275." " In the ninth year of his reign, the Tartar gen- 
 eral, Mooko, appeared on the coasts of Japan, with a fleet of four 
 thousand sail, and two hundred and forty thousand men. The 
 then reigning Tartarian emperor, Lifsu [Kublai Khan], after he had 
 conquered the empire of China, sent this general to subdue also the 
 empire of Japan. But this expedition proved unsuccessful. The 
 Kami, that is, the gods of the country, and' protectors of the Jap- 
 anese empire, were so incensed at the insult offered them by the 
 Tartars, that, on the first day of the seventh month, they excited a 
 violent and dreadful storm, which destroyed all this reputed invin- 
 cible armada. Mooko himself perished in the waves, and but few 
 of his men escaped." 
 
 Siebold, in his recently published Archives of Japan, gives the 
 following as the account of this invasion contained in the esteemed 
 Japanese chronicle, Niponki : * " So soon as Kublai Khan had 
 ascended the Mogul throne, he turned his eyes upon distant Japan. 
 This nation, like Kaou-le (one of the kingdoms of Corea), must 
 
 * As this chronicle, which is the oldest Japanese history, is stated to have 
 been originally published A. d. 720, it must be from a continuation of it fehat 
 Siebold, or rather his assistant, Hoffman, translates. 
 
MONGOL INVASION. 19 
 
 become tributary. Accordingly, in the year 1268,* lie summo'hed 
 the ruler of Nipon to acknowledge his sovereignty. No notice waa 
 taken of this summons, nor of others in 1271 and 1273, the Mogul 
 envoys being not admitted to an audience, but always dismissed by 
 the governor of Doisaifu. Hereupon a Mongol fleet, with a Corean 
 contingent, appeared off Tsusima [a small island half way from 
 Corea to Japan]. The mikaddo [ecclesiastical sovereign] appointed 
 prayer days, but the siogun [the temporal sovereign] had previ- 
 ously made along the coast every necessary preparation for defence. 
 The hostile army did not venture upon a decisive attack. Its 
 movements were governed neither by energy nor by consistency ; 
 and after hovering about a while, without any apparent definite pur- 
 pose, the squadron disappeared from the Japanese seas, merely 
 committing some hostilities upon Kiusiu, at its departure." 
 
 A Japanese encyclopedia, of quite recent date, quoted in Siebold's 
 work, besides giving Kublai Khan's letter of summons, asserts that 
 the Mongol fleet was met and defeated, after which, other Mongol 
 envoys being sent to Japan, they were summoned into the presence 
 of the siogun, by whom a decree was promulgated that no Mongol 
 should land in Japan under pain of death. And it is .even pre- 
 tended that under this decree the persons composing two subsequent 
 missions sent by Kublai Khan, in 1276 and 1279, were all put to 
 death. This was followed, according to- the same authority, by the 
 appearance of a new Mongol-Corean fleet, in 1281, off the island 
 of Firando. This fleet was destroyed by a hurricane. Those who 
 escaped to the shore were taken prisoners and executed, only three 
 being saved to carry to Kublai Khan the news of this disaster. 
 All these additions, however, to the story, — the letter of Kublai 
 Khan, the murder of the ambassadors, and the double invasion, — 
 may safely enough be set down as Japanese inventions. 
 
 * This is the equivalent, it is to be supposed, of the Japanese date men 
 tioned in the chronicle. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PORTUGUESE EMPIRE IN THE EAST. — DISCOVERY OF JAPAN. — GALVANO'g 
 
 ACCOUNT OP IT. FERNAM MENDEZ PINTO'S ACCOUNT OF HIS FIRST VISIT. 
 
 TO JAPAN, AND ADVENTURES THERE. JAPANESE ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST 
 
 ARRIVAL OF PORTUGUESE, A. D. 1542—5. 
 
 Vasco de Gama, by the route of the Cape of Good Hope, entered 
 the Indian Ocean in November, 1497, and, after coasting the African 
 continent as far north as Melinda, arrived in May, 1498, at Calicut, 
 on the Malabar or south-western coast of the peninsula of Hindostan, 
 — a discovery speedily followed, on the part of the Portuguese, by 
 extensive eastern explorations, mercantile enterprises and conquests. 
 The trade of Europe with the East in silks, spices and other luxu- 
 ries, chiefly carried on for two or three centuries preceding, so far 
 as related to their distribution through Europe, by the Venetians, 
 aided in the north by the Hanse towns, and, so far as the collec- 
 tion of the articles of it throughout the East was concerned, by the 
 Arabs (Cairo, in Egypt, being the point of exchange), was soon 
 transferred to the Portuguese ; and Lisbon, enriched by this transfer, 
 which the Mahometan traders and the Venetians struggled in 
 vain to prevent, rose rapidly, amid the decline of numerous rivals, 
 to great commercial wealth and prosperity, and the headship of 
 European commerce. 
 
 The Portuguese, from the necessity of the case, traded sword in 
 hand ; and their intercourse with the nations of the East was much 
 more marked by the insolence of conquest, than by the complaisance 
 of traders. Goa, some three hundred miles to the north of Calicut, 
 which fell into their power in 1510, became a splendid city, the 
 vice-royal and archiepiscopal seat, whence were governed a multi- 
 tude of wide-spread dependencies. The rule of the Portuguese 
 viceroy extended on the west by Diu, Ormus and Socotra (com 
 
DISCOVERY BY THE PORTUGUESE. 21 
 
 manding the entrances into the Gulf of Cambay, the Persian Gulf 
 and the Red Sea), along the east coast of Africa by Melihda to 
 Sofala, opposite the south part of Madagascar. Malacca, near the 
 extremity of the peninsula of Further India, occupied in 1511, be- 
 came the capital of their possessions and conquests in the far 
 East, and soon rose into a magnificent seat of empire and commerce, 
 second only to Goa. Among the most valuable dependencies of Ma- 
 lacca, were the Moluccas or Spice Islands. The islands of Suma- 
 tra, Java and Borneo, — in the occupation of which the Mahometans 
 had preceded them, — Celebes, Mindanao, and even New Guin- 
 ea, were coasted, and commercial and political relations established, 
 to a greater or less degree, with the native chiefs. The coasts of 
 Pegu, Siam, Cambodia, and the southern parts of China, were visited 
 as early as 1516 ; but the usual insolence of the Portuguese, in 
 attempting to establish a fortified post not far from Canton, resulted 
 in the imprisonment and miserable death of an ambassador of theirs, 
 then on his way to Pekin, while it gave a new impulse to the suspi- 
 cious policy of the Chinese, which allowed no intercourse with for- 
 eigners, and even forbade the Chinese junks to trade to foreign 
 ports. In spite, however, of this prohibition, numerous Chinese 
 merchants, self-exiled from home, were established in the princi- 
 pal trading marts of the south-eastern seas ; and with their aid, and 
 sometimes that of the corsairs, by whom the coasts of China were 
 then, as now, greatly infested, and by bribing the mandarins, a sort 
 of commerce, a cross between smuggling and privateering, was carried 
 on along the Chinese coast. The principal marts of this commerce 
 were Ningpo (known to the Portuguese as Liampo, on the continent, 
 opposite the isle of Chusan, in the suburbs of which city the 
 Portuguese managed .to establish a trading settlement) and Sancian, 
 an island near the entrance of the bay of Canton, where the Chinese 
 merchants from Canton met the Portuguese traders, who, during a 
 few months in each year, sojourned there in temporary huts while 
 the trade was going on. Down, however, to the year 1542, noth- 
 ing had yet been heard of Japan, beyond Marco Polo's mention and 
 brief account of it. 
 
 The first visit of the Portuguese to Japan is ascribed to that 
 year, 1542, by Antonio Galvano, in his little book, first published, 
 after his death, in 1557, containing a. brief chronological recital 
 
22 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1545. 
 
 of * discoveries by sea and land, from the flood to the year of 
 grace, 1555, particularly the recent ones of the Spanish and Por- 
 tuguese, in which Gralvano had been an active participator, having 
 greatly distinguished himself as the Portuguese governor of the 
 Moluccas. With a disinterestedness as uncommon then as now, 
 more intent upon the public service than his own enrichment, after 
 repeatedly refusing the regency of the Moluccas tendered to him by 
 the natives, and putting into the public treasury the rich presents 
 of spices which were made to him, he had returned to Portugal, in 
 1440, a poor man ; and so vain was his reliance on the gratitude 
 of the court, that he was obliged to pass the last seventeen years of 
 his life as the inmate of a charitable foundation, solacing his leis- 
 ure by composing the history of exploits in which he no longer par- 
 ticipated. His account of the discovery of Japan, which he must 
 have .obtained at second hand, as it happened after he had left the 
 Indies, is thus given in Hackluyt's translation : * 
 
 " In the year of our Lord 1542, one Diego de Freitas being in 
 the realm of Siam, and in the city of Dodra, as captain of a ship, 
 there fled from him three Portuguese in a junco (which is a kind of 
 ship) towards China. Their names were Antony de Moto, Francis 
 Zimoro and Antonio Perota. Directing their course to the city of 
 Liampo, standing in 30° odd of latitude, there fell upon their 
 stern such a storm, that it set them off the land ; and in a few days 
 they saw an island towards the east, standing in 32°, which they do 
 name Japan, which seemeth to be the isle of Zipangry whereof 
 Paulus Yenetus [Marco Polo] maketh mention, and of the riches 
 thereof. And this island of Japan hath gold, silver,' and other 
 riches." 
 
 Upon the strength of this statement of Gral^ano's, Maffei, in his 
 elegant Latin Indian History, first printed in 1589, and whom sub- 
 sequent writers have generally followed, ascribes to the three Por- 
 tuguese above mentioned the honor of the discovery of Japan, 
 though it was claimed, he says, by several others. Of these others 
 
 * Galvano's book in the translation, published by Hackluyt, in 1601, may 
 be found in the supplement to Hackluyt's collection of voyages, London, 
 1811. The original work was printed by the pious care of Francis de Sousa 
 Tauares, to whom Galvano left it, on his death-bed. 
 
FERNAM MENDEZ PINTO. 23 
 
 ihe only one known to us is Fernam Mendez Pinto, who, in his 
 Peregrinations in the East, first published in 1614, about thirty- 
 six years after his death, seems to represent himself and two com- 
 panions as the original Portuguese discoverers. 
 
 Pinto's veracity has been very sharply called in question ; * but 
 the main facts of his residence in the 'East and early visits to Japan 
 are amply established by contemporary letters, written from Malacca 
 as early as 1564, and published at Rome as early as 1566, includ- 
 ing one from Pinto himself. ' In the introduction to his Peregrina- 
 tions he describes himself as the child of poor parents*, born in 
 the city of old Montemayor, in Portugal, but placed in the year 
 1521, when he was about ten or twelve years old, — he fixes the 
 year by the breaking of the escutcheons on the death of king Man 
 uel, a ceremony which he witnessed, and the oldest historical fact 
 he could remember, — through the interest of an uncle, in the ser- 
 vice of a noble lady of Lisbon. Having been with her for a year 
 and a half, some catastrophe occurred, — he does not tell what, — 
 which led him to fly in terror for his life ; and, finding himself upon 
 a pier, he embarked on a vessel just about to leave it. That vessel 
 was taken by French pirates, who threatened at first to sell him 
 and the other captives to the Moors of Barbary ; but having taken 
 another richer prize, after much ill treatment, they put him and 
 several others ashore on the Portuguese coast. After this he passed 
 into the service successively of two noblemen; but finding their 
 pay very small, he was prompted to embark to seek his fortune in 
 the East ; and, in pursuit of that object, landed at Diu in 1537. 
 
 It was by the daring and enterprise of just such adventurers as 
 Pinto, that the Portuguese, who, up to this time, had few regular 
 troops in the East, had already acquired so extensive an empire 
 there ; just as a similar set of Spanish adventurers had acquired, 
 and still were extending, a vast Spanish empire in America ; the two 
 nations, in their circuit round the globe, meeting at the Moluccas, 
 the possession of which, though about this very time, as we shall 
 gee, contested by the Spaniards, the Portuguese succeeded in main- 
 • fcaining, as indeed they had been the first to visit and occupy them. 
 
 The Turks at this time were the tenor and dread of all the 
 
 * See Appendix, Note D. 
 
24 JAPAN. A. D. 1542—1545. 
 
 Christian nations. In the West, they had lately occupied Hungary, 
 laid siege to Vienna, and possessed themselves of all the fortresses 
 hitherto held by the Venetians in the Archipelago and the Morea. 
 Having acquired the superiority over Egypt by dethroning the 
 Mameluke sultans, and, by the renunciation of the caliphs of Bag- 
 dad (long exiles in Egypt), the headship of the Mahometan church, 
 they were now carrying on, with renewed energy, by way of the 
 Red Sea, the perpetual war waged in the East, as well as in the 
 West, by the Mussulmen against the infidels'; and had, indeed, just 
 before Pinto's arrival at Diu, besieged that city in great force. 
 Going to cruise against these Mussulmen enemies, after various ad- 
 ventures and a visit to Abyssinia, — with which secluded Christian 
 or semi-Christian kingdom the Portuguese had opened a commu- 
 nication, — Pinto was captured at the entrance of the Red Sea, 
 carried to Mocha, and there sold to a Greek renegado, and by him 
 to a Jew, from whom he was redeemed by the Portuguese governor 
 of Ormus, who furnished him with the means of reaching Goa. At 
 this centre of Portuguese enterprise and adventure, Pinto entered 
 into the service of Dom Pedro de Faria, captain-general of Malacca. 
 Perceiving his superior intelligence and adroitness, Faria sent him 
 on numerous missions to the native princes of those parts, by inter- 
 meddling in whose domestic affairs, the Portuguese generally con- 
 trived to find a foothold for themselves. Despatched on one of 
 these missions, he was shipwrecked, made a slave of, and sold to a 
 Mussulman, who carried him to Malacca, whence he was again sent 
 on a new mission, provided with money to redeem certain Portu- 
 guese captives, and taking with him also a small sum, which he 
 had borrowed at Malacca, to trade upon*for himself. While occu- 
 pied with this mission, Pinto met, at Patana (on the east shore of 
 the Malay peninsula, and some four hundred miles to the north of 
 Malacca), with Antonio Faria, a kinsman of his patron's, sent 
 thither on a political mission, but who had also improved the 
 opportunity for trade, by borrowing at Malacca twelve thousand 
 crusados,* which he had invested in cloths. Finding no market 
 
 * A Portuguese coin, as corresponding to which in value the Spanish 
 translator of Pinto gives ducats, which, of silver, were about equal to a dollar 
 of our money. 
 
FERNAM MENDEZ PINTO. 25 
 
 there for these goods, Faria was induced to despatch them to 
 Lugor, on the same coast, further north ; aDd Pinto, with his small 
 adventure, was led by the hope of a profitable trade to embark in 
 the same vessel. He arrived safely near Lugor ; but the ves- 
 sel, while lying in the river below that city, was boarded by a 
 Saracen corsair. Pinto with two others plunged into the water 
 and escaped, wounded, to the shore; and having succeeded in 
 reaching Patana, he communicated to Antonia de Faria informa- 
 tion of their mutual loss. 
 
 Overwhelmed by this news, and afraid to face his creditors at 
 Malacca, Faria, with the remnant of his fortune and the assistance 
 of his friends, fitted out a small cruiser, in which he embarked in 
 May, 1640, with several Portuguese, and Pinto among the rest, 
 nominally to seek out the pirate who had robbed him, but in fact 
 to recruit his fortune as he might. After many adventures, — 
 the acquisition of great wealth by numerous captures of richly- 
 laden corsairs and others, its loss by shipwreck, the getting of a 
 new vessel, the meeting with the corsair who had robbed them at 
 Lugor, the taking of his vessel, another shipwreck, and the sack of 
 a Chinese town, where some of their shipwrecked companions were 
 detained as prisoners, — they put into Liampo, finding on some 
 islands at no great distance from that city, and known as the Gates 
 of Liampo, a Portuguese settlement of a thousand houses, with six or 
 seven churches, and with regular Portuguese officers and laws — as 
 much so, says Pinto, as if the place had been situated between Lis- 
 bon and Santarem.* Here they met with a Chinese corsair, who 
 told them a marvellous story of the island of Calempui, not far 
 from Pekin, in which lay' buried seventeen Chinese kings, and 
 whose tombs, guarded and watched over by priests, contained vast 
 treasures. Under the pilotage of this corsair, Faria set out in 
 May, 1642, to rob these tombs. Pinto's account of the voyage 
 thither, and of the tombs themselves, from which, terrified by the 
 alarm that was raised, they fled away, with their object very par- 
 tially accomplished, forms one of the most questionable, and, at all 
 events, the most distorted portions of his narrative. 
 
 * This Portuguese colony was of no long continuance. It was soon broken 
 lip by the Chinese, as Pinto intimates, through the folly of the Portuguese 
 residents. 
 
 JAPAN REFERENCE 
 LIBRARY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
26 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1545* 
 
 Shortly after, they were shipwrecked again on the Chinese 
 coast. Faria, with most of his countrymen, was drowned ; but 
 Pinto with thirteen others escaped to the shore, where they lived a 
 while by begging, but were presently taken up as vagabonds, 
 harshly treated, sent to Nankin, and there, on suspicion of being 
 thieves, condemned to lose their thumbs. They appealed from this 
 sentence by the aid of certain officers appointed to look after the 
 poor, and were taken to Pekin, where, after a residence of twe 
 months and a half, the charge of theft was dismissed for want of proof, 
 the prosecutors being obliged to pay them damages ; but still they 
 were sent into confinement to the frontier town of Quansi for eight 
 months, there to work in the maintenance of the great wall. From 
 this imprisonment they were delivered by an inroad of Tartars, who 
 laid siege to Pekin, and to whom one of the Portuguese, reduced 
 by this time to nine in all, rendered essential military service. Ac- 
 companying these invaders back to Tartary, they were sent, except 
 one, who remained behind, as attendants upon the train of an am- 
 bassador to Cochin China, by whose procurement they were con- 
 veyed to the island of Sanchian, in hopes of finding a passage 
 thence to Malacca. But the Portuguese ships had departed five 
 days before ; and so they proceeded on some leagues further to the 
 island of Lampacau (the same upon which the Portuguese town of 
 Macao was not long afterwards built, and already a resort for mer- 
 chants and rovers). Here they found no other resource except to 
 enlist into the service of a Chinese corsair, who arrived shortly 
 after they did, with two ships, of which the crews were mostly 
 wounded, having just escaped, with the loss of many other ships, 
 from a recent engagement with a Chinese fleet, off Chincheo, a 
 great city, about half way from Canton to Ningpo. The Portu- 
 guese had got into a quarrel among themselves, which they carried 
 out, as Pinto says, with true Portuguese obstinacy. Five of them 
 embarked in one of the corsair's ships, and Pinto, with two com- 
 panions, named Diego Zeimoto and Christopher Borello, in the other. 
 The five, with the vessel in which they sailed, were soon after 
 lost m a desperate naval engagement, which lasted a whole day, 
 with seven large corsair junks, in which that vessel was burnt. 
 The other, in which Pinto was, escaped with the, greatest difficulty. 
 by favor of the breeze, which freshened at night. This breeza 
 
27 
 
 changed soon into a gale, before which the corsair ran for the Lew 
 Chew' islands, with which he was familiar; but being without a 
 pilot, and the wind shifting to the north-east, they had to beat 
 against it for twenty-three days before they made land. After run- 
 ning a!ong the coast for some distance they anchored off an island 
 in seventy fathoms.* " Immediately," says Pinto, " two little skiffs 
 put off the shore to meet us, in which were six men, who, on com- 
 ing on board, after having saluted us courteously, asked us whence 
 our junk came ; and being answered that it came from China, with 
 merchandise to trade there, if permission should be obtained, 
 one of the six said to us that the Nantaquim, the lord of that 
 island, which was called Tonixuma, would willingly permit us to 
 trade, if we would pay the duties customarily paid in Japan; 
 which, said he, is that great island which you see there over against 
 us." Whereupon the ship was piloted into a good harbor, on 
 which was seated a considerable town, and was soon surrounded 
 with boats bringing provisions to sell. 
 
 In a short time they were visited by the Nantaquim himself, 
 accompanied by many gentlemen and merchants, with chests of 
 silver. As he approached the ship, the first persons who attracted 
 his attention were Pinto and his companions. Perceiving how dif- 
 ferent they were in complexion, features and beard, from the others, 
 he eagerly inquired who they were. " The corsair captain made 
 answer to him," says Pinto, "that we were from a land called 
 Malacca, to which many years before we had gone from another 
 very distant country, called Portugal ; at which the prince, greatly 
 astonished, turning to those about him, said, ' May I die, if these 
 be not the Chenchicogis, of whom it is written in our ancient books, 
 that, flying on the tops of the waves, they will subdue all the lands 
 about them, until they become masters of all the countries in which 
 God has placed the riches of the world! Wherefore we should 
 esteem it a great piece of good fortune if they come to us with 
 
 * It is difficult to understand by what mistake Charlevoix, in his His- 
 toiro. du Jupon, ascribes this discovery to the same year, 1542, as that of 
 the three Japanese mentioned by Galvano. Pinto's chronology is rather 
 confused, but it is impossible to fix this voyage to Japan earlier than 
 1545. 
 
28 JAPAN. A. D. 1542-1545. 
 
 offer* of friendship and good will.' # And then calling in the aid 
 of a woman of Lew Chew, whom he employed as interpreter, he pro- 
 ceeded to make very particular inquiries of the captain as to where 
 he had found these men, and why he had brought them thither. 
 To whom," says Pinto, " our captain replied, that without doubt 
 we were merchants and trusty people, whom, having found ship- 
 wrecked on the island of Lampucau, he had received on board his 
 junk, as it was his custom to do by all whom he found in such 
 case, having himself been saved in the same way from the like dis- 
 aster, to which all were liable who ventured their lives and prop- 
 erty against the impetuous fury of the waves." Satisfied with this 
 answer, the prince came on board; not with his whole retinue, 
 though they were all eager for it, but with only a select few. 
 After examining the ship very curiously he seated himself under an 
 awning, and asked the Portuguese many questions about their 
 countr}^ and what they had seen in their travels. Highly delighted 
 with their answers and the new information they were able to give 
 him, he invited them -to visit him on shore the next day, assuring 
 them that this curious information was the merchandise he most 
 wished for, and of which he never could have enough. The next 
 morning he sent to the junk a large boat loaded with grapes,! 
 pears, melons, and a great variety of vegetables, for which the cap- 
 tain returned a present of cloths and Chinese jewels. The next clay, 
 having first moored the ship securely, the captain went on shore 
 with samples of his goods, taking with him the three Portuguese, 
 and ten or twelve of the best-looking of the Chinese. Their recep- 
 tion was very gracious, and the prince having called together the 
 
 * The terms Chengecu and Chenghequu are represented in two letters, 
 one dated in 1651 (Seleciarum Epistolarum ex India, Lib. i.), addressed to 
 Xavier by a companion of his ; the other, dated in 1560, and written by 
 Lawrence, a converted Japanese and a Jesuit {lb., Lib. ii.), as commonly em- 
 ployed in Japan to designate Europe. 
 
 Golownin mentions that at the time of his imprisonment (1812), he found a 
 prophecy in circulation among the Japanese, that they should be conquered 
 by a people from the north. Possibly both these prophecies — that men- 
 tioned by Pinto and that by Golownin — might be a little colored by th« 
 "vatriotic hopes of the European relaters. 
 
 t Golownin says there are no grapes in Japan, except a small, wild kind ; 
 v?ry sour, which are salted and eaten as salad. 
 
PINTO S FIRST VISIT. 2ft 
 
 principal merchants, the samples were exhibited, and a tariff of 
 prices agreed upon. 
 
 This matter arranged, the prince began to re-question the Portu- 
 guese ; to which inquiries Pinto, who acted as spokesman, made 
 answers dictated, as he confesses, less by strict regard to the truth, 
 than by his desire to satisfy the prince's appetite for wonders, and 
 to magnify the king and country of Portugal in his eyes. The 
 prince wished to know whether it were true, as the Chinese and 
 Lew Chewans had told him, that Portugal was larger and richer 
 than China ? Whether (a matter as to Yv r hich he seemed very cer- 
 tain) the king of Portugal had really conquered the greater part of 
 the world ? And whether he actually had more than two thousand 
 houses full of gold and silver? All which questions Pinto answered 
 in the affirmative ; though, as to the two thousand houses, he con- 
 fessed that he had never actually counted them — a thing by no 
 means easy in a kingdom so vast. 
 
 Well pleased with his guests, the king caused the Portuguese to 
 be entertained, by a wealthy merchant, in a house near his own ; 
 and he assigned also warehouses to the Chinese captain to facilitate 
 his trade, which proved so successful that a cargo, which had cost 
 him in China twenty-five hundred taels * of silver, brought him in 
 twelve times as much in Japan ; thus reimbursing all the loss he 
 had lately suffered by the capture of his vessels. 
 
 " Meanwhile we three Portuguese," says Pinto, " as we had no 
 merchandise to occupy ourselves about, enjoyed our time in fishing, 
 hunting and visiting the temples, where the priests or bonzes, as 
 they are called, gave us a very good reception, the Japanese being 
 naturally well disposed and very conversable. Deigo Zeimoto 
 went often forth to shoot with an espingarda [a large hand-gun or 
 musket], which he had brought from Tartary,. and in the use of 
 which he was very dexterous. One day, at a lake where were many 
 kinds of birds, he killed at various shots six-and- twenty ducks. 
 
 * A tael is about an ounce and a third English. The tael is divided into 
 ten mas ; the mas into ten kandarins ; the kandarins into ten kas ; and 
 these denominations (the silver passing by weight) are in general use 
 throughout the far East. Sixteen taels make a katty (about a pound and a 
 third, avoirdupois), and one hundred katties a picul 3 — these being the mer- 
 cantile weights in common use. 
 
30 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1545. 
 
 Some Japanese, observing this new method of shooting, which they 
 had never seen before, reported it to the prince, who was busy 
 at the moment in observing the running of some horses, which had 
 been brought to him from a distance. Zeimoto, being called, came 
 into his presence, with the gun on his shoulder, and two China- 
 men loaded with the game ; and as the thing was entirely novel in 
 this country, and as the Japanese knew nothing of the secret of the 
 powder, they all ascribed it to enchantment, — an astonishment 
 which Zeimoto increased by shooting on the spot a kite and two 
 doves. The prince caused Zeimoto to be mounted on a horse, him- 
 self sitting behind him, and to be conducted through the town, fol- 
 lowed by a great crowd, preceded by a herald, who proclaimed him an 
 adopted kinsman of the prince, to be treated by all as such ; and 
 having taken him to his own palace, he assigned him an apartment 
 there next his own, doing many favors also to the other Portuguese 
 for his sake. Zeimoto responded by making the prince a present of 
 the gun, who sent him, in return, a thousand taels of silver, beseeching 
 him much to teach him how to make the powder ; with which request 
 Zeimoto complied. The prince, greatly delighted with his acquisition, 
 caused other guns to be made like it; so that," says Pinto, "when 
 we left, which was in five months and a half, there were more than 
 six hundred ; and when I visited Japan, in 1556, as ambassador 
 from the Portuguese viceroy, Don Alonzo de Noronha,to the king 
 of Bungo, the Japanese told me that in the city of Eucheo, the 
 capital of that kingdom, there were more than thirty thousand guns. 
 And when I expressed my astonishment at this as incredible, 
 some very respectable merchants positively assured me that in the 
 whole land of Japan there were more than three hundred thousand, 
 and that they themselves, in six voyages to Lew Chew, had carried 
 thither five-and-twenty thousand. From which it may be known 
 what this nation is, and how naturally inclined to military exer- 
 cises, in which it delights itself more than any other of these dis- 
 tant nations yet discovered." # 
 
 At the end of three-and-twenty days, a ship arrived from the 
 kingdom of Bungo, in which came many' merchants, who, as soon 
 as they had landed, waited on the prince with presents, as was cus- 
 tomary. Among them was an old man, very well attended, and 
 * See Appendix, Note C. 
 
PINTO'S FIRST VISIT. 31 
 
 to whom all the rest paid great respect. He made prostrations 
 before the prince, presenting him a letter, and a rich sword, gar- 
 nished with gold, and a box of fans, which the prince received 
 with great ceremony. The reading of this letter seemed to disturb 
 the prince, and, having sent the messengers away to refresh them- 
 selves, he informed the Portuguese, through the interpreter, that it 
 came from the king of Bungo and Facata, his uncle, father-in- 
 law, and liege-lord, as he was also the superior of several other 
 principalities. This letter, — which, as is usual with him in such 
 cases, Pinto, by a marvellous stretch of memory, undertakes to give 
 in precise words, — declared that the writer had heard by persons 
 from Saxuma that the prince had in his city " three Chenchiogins, 
 from the end of the world, very like the Japanese, clothed in 
 silk and girded with swords ; not like merchants, whose business it 
 is to trade, but like lovers of honor, seeking to gild their names 
 therewith, and who had given great information, affirming, on their 
 veracity, that there is another world, much larger than this of ours, 
 and peopled with men of various complexions;" and the letter 
 ended with begging that, by Fingeandono, his ambassador, the 
 prince would send back one of these men, the king promising to 
 return him safe and soon. It appeared from this letter, and from 
 the explanations which the prince added to it, that the king of 
 Bungo was a severe sufferer from a gouty affection and from fits of 
 melancholy, from which he hoped, by the aid of these foreigners, to 
 obtain some diversion, if not relief. The prince, anxious and 
 bound as he was to oblige his relative and superior, was yet unwil- 
 ling to send Zeimoto, his adopted kinsman ; but one of the others he 
 begged to consent to go; and when both volunteered, he chose 
 Pinto,. as he seemed the more gay and cheerful of the two, and so 
 best fitted to divert the sick man's melancholy ; whereas the solemn 
 gravity of the other, though of great account in more weighty mat- 
 ters, might, in the case of a sick man, rather tend to increase his 
 ennui. And so, with many compliments, to which, says Piato, the 
 Japanese are much inclined, he was given in charge to the ambas- 
 sador, with many injunctions for his good treatment, havmg first, 
 however, received two hundred tacls, with which to equip himself. 
 
 The^r departed in a sort of galley ; and, stopping in various 
 places, arrived in four or five days at Osqui, a fortress of the king of 
 
32 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1545. 
 
 Bungo,* seven leagues distant from his capital of Fucheo, to which 
 they proceeded by land. Arriving there in the middle of the daj 
 (not a proper time to wait upon the king), the ambassador took him 
 to his own house, where they were joyfully met, and Pinto was 
 well entertained by the ambassador's wife and two sons. Proceed- 
 ing to the palace on horseback, they were very graciously received 
 by a son of the king, some nine or ten years old, who came forth 
 richly dressed and with many attendants. After many ceremonies 
 between the young prince and the ambassador, they were taken to 
 the king, who, though sick abed, received the ambassador with 
 many formalities. Presently Pinto was introduced, and by some 
 well-turned compliments made a favorable impression, leading the 
 courtiers to conclude — and so they told the king — that he could not 
 be a merchant, who had passed his life in the low business of buy- 
 ing and selling, but rather some learned bonze, or at least some brave 
 corsair of the seas. In this opinion the king coincided; and, being 
 already somewhat relieved from his pains, proceeded to question the 
 stranger as to the cure of the gout, which he suffered from, or at least 
 some remedy for the total want of appetite by which he was afflicted. 
 Pinto professed himself no doctor, but nevertheless undertook to cure 
 the king by means of a sovereign herb which he had brought with 
 
 * The kingdom or province of Bungo is situated on the east coast of the 
 second in size and southernmost in situation of the three larger Japanese 
 islands, off the south-east extremity of which lies the small island of Tanix 
 uma (or Tanegasima), where Pinto represents himself as having first landed. 
 
 The name Bungo was frequently extended by the Portuguese to the whole 
 large island o, which it formed a part, though, among them, the more com- 
 mon designation of that island, after they knew it to be such (for they seem 
 at first to have considered it a part of Nipon), was Ximo. This name, Ximo, 
 appears to have been only a modification of the term sima (or, as the Portu- 
 guese wrote it, xima), the Japanese word for island, and as such terminating 
 many names of places. On our maps this island is called Kiusiu, meaning, 
 as Kampfer tells us in one place, " Western Country," and in another 
 " Country of Nine," from the circumstance of its being divided into nine 
 provinces, which latter appears to be the correct interpretation. There are 
 in use in Japan Chinese as well as Japanese names of provinces and officers, 
 (the Chinese probably a translation of the Japanese) ; and not only the 
 names Nipon and Kiusiu, but that of Bungo (to judge from the terminal n 
 of the first syllable), is of Chinese origin. For further information on the 
 language of Japan, see Appendix A. 
 
PINTO'S FIRST VISIT. 82 
 
 him from China (ginseng, probably) ; and this drug he tried on the 
 patient with such good effect, that in thirty days he was up and 
 walking, which he had not done for two years before. The next 
 twenty days Pinto passed in answering an infinite number of ques- 
 tions, many of them very frivolous, put to him by the king and his 
 courtiers, and in entertaining himself in observing their feasts, wor- 
 ship, martial exercises, ships of war, fisheries and hunting, to which 
 they were much given, and especially their fowling with hawks 
 and falcons, quite after the European fashion. 
 
 x A gun, which Pinto had taken with him, excited as much curi- 
 osity as it had done at Tanixuma, especially on the part of a second 
 son of the king, named Arichandono,*' about seventeen or eighteen 
 years old, who was very pressing to be allowed to shoot it. This 
 Pinto declined to permit, -as being dangerous for a person without 
 experience ; but, at the intercession of the king, he appointed a time 
 at which the experiment should be made. The young prince, how- 
 ever, contrived beforehand to get possession of the gun while Pinto 
 was asleep, and, having greatly overloaded it, it burst, severely 
 wounding his hand and greatly disabling one of his thumbs. 
 Hearing the explosion, and running out to see what might be the 
 matter, Pinto found the young prince abandoned by his frightened 
 companions, and lying on the ground bleeding and insensible ; and 
 by the crowd, who rushed in, he was immediately accused of having 
 murdered the king's son, hired to do so, as was suspected, by the 
 relations of two noblemen executed the day before as traitors. His 
 life seemed to be in the most imminent danger ; he was so fright- 
 ened as not to be able to speak, and so beside himself that if they 
 had killed him he hardly thinks he would have known it ; when, for- 
 tunately, the young prince coming to, relieved him from all blame 
 by telling how the accident had happened. The prince's wounds, 
 however, seemed so severe, that none of the bonzes called in dared to 
 undertake the cure ; and it was recommended, as a last resource, to 
 send to Facata, seventy leagues off, for another bonze, of great 
 reputation, and ninety-two years old. But the young prince, who 
 declared that he should die while waiting, preferred to entrust him- 
 self to the hands of Pinto, who, following the methods which he 
 
 **For some remarks on Japanese names of persons, see Appendix B 
 
34 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1545. 
 
 had seen adopted by Portuguese surgeons in India, in twenty days 
 had the young prince able to walk about again; for which he 
 received so many presents that the cure was worth to him more than 
 fifteen hundred cruzados. Information coming from Tanixuma that 
 the Chinese corsair was ready to sail, Pinto was sent back by the 
 king in a galley, manned by twenty rowers, commanded by a gen- 
 tleman of the royal household, and provided with abundant sup 
 plies. 
 
 The corsair having taken him on board, they sailed for Liampo, 
 where they arrived in safety. The three survivors of Antonio d£ 
 Faria's ship were received at that Portuguese settlement with the 
 greatest astonishment, and many congratulations for their return ; 
 and the discovery they had made of the rich lands of Japan was 
 celebrated by a religious procession, high mass, and a sermon. 
 
 These pious services over, all hastened with the greatest zeal and 
 contention to get the start of the rest in fitting out ships for this 
 new traffic, the Chinese taking advantage of this rivalry, to put up 
 the prices of their goods to the highest rates. In fifteen days nine 
 junks, not half provided for the voyage, put to sea, Pinto himself 
 being on board one of them. Overtaken on their passage by a ter- 
 rible storm, seven of them foundered, with the loss of seven hun- 
 dred men, of whom a hundred and forty were Portuguese, and 
 cargoes to the value of three hundred thousand cruzados. Two 
 others, on board one of which was Pinto, escaped, and arrived near 
 the Lew Chew islands ; where, in another storm, that in which Pinto 
 was lost sight of the other, nor was it ever afterwards heard of. 
 " Towards evening," says Pinto, " the wind coming east-north-east, 
 the waves ran so boisterous, wild and high, that it was most fright- 
 ful to see. Our captain, Gaspar de Melo, an hidalgo and very brave, 
 seeing that the junk had sprung a-leak in her poop, and that the 
 water stood already nine palms deep on the lower deck, ordered, 
 with the advice of his officers, to cut away both masts, as, with their 
 weight and the rolling, the junk was opening very fast. Yet, in 
 spite of all care, he could not prevent the mainmast from carrying 
 away with it fourteen men, among whom were five Portuguese, 
 crushed in the ruins, — a most mournful spectacle, which took away 
 from us survivors all the little spirits we had left. So we suffered 
 ourselves to be drifted along before the increasing tempest, which 
 
JAPANESE ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST EUROPEANS. 35 
 
 We had no means to resist, until about sunset, when the junk began 
 to open at every seam. Then the captain and all of us, seeing the 
 miserable condition in which we were, betook ourselves for succor 
 to an image of our Lady, whom we besought with tears and groans 
 to intercede for us with her blessed Son to forgive our sins." 
 
 The night having passed in this manner, about dawn the junk 
 struck a shoal and went to pieces, most of the crew being drowned. 
 A few, however, escaped to the shore of what proved to be the 
 Lew Chew islands, now first made known to the Portuguese. Here 
 happened many new dangers and adventures ; but at last, by female 
 aid, always a great resource with Pinto, he found his way back in 
 a Chinese junk to Liampo, whence, after various other adventures, 
 he again reached Malacca* 
 
 To these Portuguese accounts of the European discovery of 
 Japan, may be added the following, which Siebold gives as an 
 extract from a Japanese book of annals : " Under the Mikado 
 Konaru, and the Ziogoun Yosi-hao . in the twelfth year of the Nengo 
 Tinbun,* on the twenty-second day of the eighth month [Oct. 1543], 
 a strange ship made the island Tanegozima, near Koura, in the 
 
 * The Japanese date by the years of the reign of the Dairi, or Mikado (of 
 •whom more hereafter), and they also, for ordinary purposes, employ the 
 Chinese device of nengos. These are periods, or eras, of arbitrary length, 
 from one year to many, appointed at the pleasure of the reigning Dairi, 
 named by him, and lasting till the establishment of a new nengo. For con- 
 venience, every new nengo, and also every new reign, begins chronologically 
 with the new year, the old nengo and old reign being protracted to the end 
 of the year in which it closes. 
 
 The Japanese month is alternately twenty-nine and thirty days, of which 
 every year has twelve, with a repetition of one of the months, in seven years 
 out of every nineteen, so as to bring this reckoning by lunar months into cor- 
 respondency with the course of the earth round the sun ; this method being 
 based on a knowledge of the correspondency of two hundred and thirty-five 
 lunations with nineteen solar years. According to Titsingh, every thirty- 
 third month is repeated, so as to make up the necessary number of inter- 
 calary months, the number of days in these intercalary months being fixed 
 by the almanacs issued at Miako. The commencement of the Japanese year 
 is generally in February. The months are divided into two distinct portions, 
 of fifteen days, each having a distinct name, and the first day of each of which 
 serves as a Sunday, or holiday. This regulation of the Japanese calendar is 
 borrowed from the Chinese, as also the use of the period of sixty years corre- 
 sponding to our century. 
 
36 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1445. 
 
 remote province Nisimura.* The crew, about two hundred in num- 
 ber, had a singular appearance ; their language was unintelligible, 
 their native land unknown. On board was a Chinese, named Go- 
 how, who understood writing. From him it was gathered, that 
 this was a nan-ban (Japanese form of the Chinese nan-man), that 
 is, 'southern barbarian' ship. On the twenty-sixth, this vessei 
 was taken to Aku-opi harbor, on the north-west side of the island, 
 and Tokitaku, governor of Tanegozima, instituted a strict investiga- 
 tion concerning her, the Japanese bonze, Tsyn-sigu-zu, acting as 
 interpreter by means of Chinese characters. On board the nan- 
 ban ship were two commanders, Mura-synkya and Krista-muta. 
 They had fire-arms, and first made the Japanese acquainted with 
 shooting arms, and the preparation of shooting powder." It is 
 added that the Japanese have preserved portraits of these two dis- 
 tinguished strangers ; but, if so, it is much to be feared that the 
 likenesses cannot be relied upon, as Fischer, one of the most recent 
 writers on Japan, and who has himself published the finest speci- 
 mens which have yet appeared of Japanese graphic art, says he 
 never knew nor heard of a tolerable Japanese portrait-painter ; 
 while Grolownin declares that the portraits taken of himself and his 
 companions, prisoners on the island of Malsmai, in 1812, to be 
 forwarded to Jedo, bore not the least resemblance to the originals.! 
 
 * No such province is mentioned in the lists of Japanese provinces by father 
 Rodriguez, Kampfer and Klaproth. 
 
 t " They wished to have our portraits taken at full length ; and Tes'ce, 
 who knew how to draw, was appointed to execute them. He drew them in 
 India ink, but in such a style that each portrait would have passed for that 
 of any other individual as well as of him it was intended, for. Except the long 
 beard, we could trace no resemblance in them. The Japanese, however, sent 
 them to the capital, where they were probably hung up in some of their g il- 
 ieries of pictures." — Golownin's Captivity in Japan t vol. i., ch. 4. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 PINTO'S SECOND VISIT TO JAPAN. — ANGIRO, OR PAUL OF THE HOLT FAITH 
 
 — A. D. 1547-1518. 
 
 After a great variety of haps and mishaps in Pegu, Siam, Java 
 and elsewhere, Fernam Mendez Pinto represents himself as having 
 embarked a second time for Japan, m a ship commanded by G eorge 
 Alvarez, which sailed from Malacca in the year 1547. In twenty- 
 six days they made the island of Tanixuma, nine leagues south of 
 the main land of Japan ; and on the fifth day afterwards, reached 
 Fucheo, in the kingdom of Bungo, a hundred leagues to the north. 
 The king and the inhabitants gave them a very friendly reception ; 
 but, very shortly after their arrival, a civil commotion broke out, 
 in which the king was murdered with most of his family and a 
 number of Portuguese who were in his service, the city being set 
 on fire during the outbreak, and great numbers killed on both 
 sides. 
 
 One of the king's sons, who, when this event occurred, happened 
 to be at the fortress of Osqui, seven leagues distance, would have 
 proceeded at once to Fucheo, but for the advice of his tutor, Finge- 
 indoflo, the same name, with the change of a single vowel, borne 
 by the ambassador of the king of Bungo, under whose guidance 
 Pinto, according to his former narrative, had first visited Fucheo. 
 This person advised the young prince first to collect a sufficient 
 army ; and of the Japanese method of calling to arms Pinto gives 
 the following account. Every housekeeper, high and low, was 
 required to keep by him a conch-shell, which, under severe penal- 
 tics, could be sounded on four occasions only — tumults, fire, thieves 
 and treason. To distinguish what the alarm was for, the shell was 
 sounded once for tumult, twice for fire, three times for thieves, and 
 four times for treason. So soon as the alarm of treason wa» 
 4 
 
38 JAPAN. — A. D. 1547—1548. 
 
 sounded, every householder who heard it was obliged to repeat it. 
 And upon the signal thus given, and which spread from house to 
 house, and village to village, all were obliged to march armed to 
 the spot whence it came, the whole population of the district being 
 thus very soon collected. 
 
 By this means, in the course of seven days, during three of which 
 the young prince lamented his murdered relatives at a convent of 
 bonzes in a grove near the city, after which he proceeded to confis- 
 cate the estates of the rebels, Pinto collects for him an army, — 
 he is generally pretty liberal in such matters, — estimated at one 
 hundred and thirty thousand men, of whom seventeen thousand 
 were cavalry. The multitude thus collected breeding a famine, 
 the prince marched upon Fucheo, where he was received with great 
 demonstrations of loyalty. But, before repairing to the palace, he 
 stopped at the temple where the body of his father was lying, whose 
 obsequies he celebrated with much pomp, the observance lasting 
 through two nights, with a great display of torches and illumina- 
 tions. The closing ceremony was the presentation to the son of 
 the bloody garments of the father, on which he swore that he would 
 show no mercy to the traitors, even though to save their lives they 
 might turn bonzes ; but that, rather than allow them to escape, he 
 would destroy every convent or temple in which they might take 
 refuge. 
 
 On the fourth day, having been inaugurated as king, but with 
 little pomp, he marched with a still increasing army against the 
 rebels, who, to the number of ten thousand, had entrenched them- 
 selves on a neighboring hill, where, being surrounded by the royal 
 forces, rather than surrender, they were cut off to a man. 
 
 The city of Fucheo was left almost in ruins by this civil war ; 
 and the Portuguese, despairing of being able to find purchasers for 
 their goods, proceeded to the city of Hyamonyoo, ninety leagues to 
 the southward, on the bay of Cangoxima, where they remained for 
 two months and a half, unable to sell their cargo, as the market 
 was completely overstocked by Chinese merchandise, which had 
 been poured in such quantities into the Japanese ports as to be 
 worth much less than it was in China. Pinto and his company 
 were entirely at a loss what to do ; but from this dilemma they 
 were delivered, as Pinto will have it, by the special providence of 
 
THE JAPANESE. 39 
 
 the Most High ; for, at the new moon of December, a terrible storm 
 occurred, in which almost the whole of these foreign traders were 
 destroyed, to the incredible number, as Pinto relates, of near two 
 thousand vessels, including twenty-six belonging to the Portuguese. 
 Of the whole number, only ten or a dozen escaped, among them that 
 in which Pinto was, which afterwards disposed of her lading to 
 very good profit. So they got ready to depart, well pleased to see 
 themselves so rich, but sad at having made their gains at the 
 cost of so many lives, both of countrymen and strangers. Three 
 times, however, they were detained by accidents, the last time 
 barely escaping — by the help of the Virgin Mary, as Pinto insists 
 — being carried by the strong current upon a dangerous reef; 
 just at which moment they saw approaching the shore, in great 
 haste, two men on horseback, making signs to them with a cloth. 
 The preceding night four slaves, one of whom belonged to Pinto, 
 had escaped from the vessel ; and, thinking to receive some news of 
 them, Pinto went in the boat with two companions. " Coming to 
 the shore," he says, " where the two men on horseback awaited us, 
 one of them, who seemed the principal person, said to me, ' Sir, as 
 the haste I am in admits of no delay, being in great fear of some 
 people who are in pursuit of me, I beg of you, for the love of God, 
 that, without suggesting doubts or weighing inconveniences, you will 
 receive me at once on board your ship.' At which words of his, 
 I was so much embarrassed," says Pinto, " as hardly to know what 
 to do, and the more so, as I recollected having twice seen him in 
 Hyamonyoo, in the company of some merchants of that city. Scarce- 
 !y had I received him and his companion into the boat, when four- 
 teen men on horseback made their appearance, approaching at full 
 speed, and crying out to me, ' Give up that traitor, or we will kill 
 you ! ' Others soon after came up, both horsemen and on foot : 
 whereupon I put off to the distance of a good bow-shot, and in- 
 quired what they wanted. To which they made answer, ' If thou 
 dost carry off that Japanese, know that a thousand heads, of fellows 
 like thee, shall pay the forfeit of it.' To all which," says Pinto, 
 " I replied not' a word, but, pulling to the ship, got on board with 
 the two Japanese, who were well received, and provided by the 
 captain and the other Portuguese with everything necessary for so 
 long a voyage." The name of this fugitive was Angiro, " an instru- 
 
40 JAPAN. A. D. 1547—1548. 
 
 merit selected by the Lord," so Pinto piously observes, "for hig 
 praise, and the exaltation of the holy faith." 
 
 . In fourteen days, the ship reached Chincheo, but found the 
 mouth of the river leading to it blockaded by a famous Chinese 
 corsair, with a great fleet ; to avoid whom they turned aside and 
 sailed for Malacca. 
 
 In this city Pinto met, apparently for the first time, with 
 Master Francis Xavier, general superior or provincial of the order 
 of the Jesuits in India, in all parts of which occupied by the 
 Portuguese he had already attained a high reputation for self- 
 devotion, sanctity, and miraculous power ; and who was then at 
 Malacca, on his return to Groa, from a mission on which he had 
 lately been to the Moluccas. " The father," says Pinto, " had 
 received intelligence of our arrival, and that we had brought with 
 us the Japanese Angiro. He came to visit Greorge Alvarez and 
 myself, in the house of one Cosmo Rodriguez, where we lodged, and 
 passed almost a whole day with us in curious inquiries (all founded 
 on his lively zeal for the honor of Grod) about the countries we had 
 visited ; in the course of which I told him, not knowing that he 
 knew it already, that we had brought with us two Japanese, one 
 of whom appeared to be a man of consideration, well skilled in the 
 laws and religion of Japan. Whereupon he expressed great desire 
 to see him ; in consequence of which, we brought him to the hos- 
 pital, where the father lodged, who received him gladly and took 
 him to India, whither he was then on his way. Having arrived at 
 Groa, Angiro there became a Christian, taking the name of Paulo 
 de Santa Fe [Paul of the Holy Faith], and in a short time learnt 
 to read and write Portuguese, and mastered the whole Christian 
 doctrine ; so that the father only waited for the monsoon, to go to 
 announce to the heathen of the isle of Japan, Christ, the Son of the 
 living Grod, nailed to the cross for our sins (as he was accustomed 
 to do), and to take this man with him as an interpreter, as he after- 
 wards did, and his companion also, who, as well as himself, pro- 
 fessed the Christian faith, and received from the father the nam* 
 of John." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 RELIGIOUS FAITH THREE CENTURIES AGO. ZEAL OF THE PORTUGUESE CON- 
 QUERORS. ANTONIO GALVANO. MISSIONARY SEMINARIES AT TERNATE 
 
 AND GOA. — ORDER OF THE JESUITS. FRANCIS XAVIER. HIS MISSION 
 
 TO INDIA. HIS MISSION TO JAPAN. HIS COMPANION, COSME DE TOR- 
 RES. — THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. — A. D. 1512—1550. 
 
 Three centuries ago the religious faith of Europe was much 
 more energetic and active than at present. "With all imaginative 
 minds, even those of the highest order, the popular belief had, at 
 that time, all the force of undoubted reality. Michael Angelo and 
 Raphael embodied it in marble and colors ; and it is difficult to say 
 which impulse was the stronger with the Portuguese and Spanish 
 adventurers of that age, — the fierce thirst for gold and glory, which 
 they felt as we feel it now, or a passionate desire for the prop- 
 agation of their religious faith, such indeed as is still talked about, 
 and feebly exhibited in action, but in which the great bulk of the 
 community, especially the more cultivated part of it, takes at present 
 either no interest, or a very slight one. 
 
 The Portuguese adventurers in the East, wherever they went, 
 were accompanied by friars, mostly Franciscans, and the" building 
 of magnificent churches was one of the first things attended to. 
 
 Of all these adventurers, few, if indeed a single one, have left so 
 respectable a character as Antonio Galvano, already mentioned, 
 governor of the Moluccas from 1586 to 1540, which islands, from 
 a state of violent hostility to the Portuguese, and rebellion against 
 them, he brought back to quiet and willing submission. Not less 
 distinguished for piety than for valor and disinterestedness, Galvano 
 made every effort to diffuse among the natives of the oriental 
 archipelago a knowledge of the Catholic faith ; and with that view 
 he established at Tematc, seat of the Portuguese government of the 
 4* 
 
42 JAPAN. — A. .). 1542—1550. 
 
 Moluccas, a seminary for the education of boys of superior abilities, 
 to be collected from various nations, who, upon arriving at matu 
 rity, might preach the gospel, each in his own country — an institu 
 tion which the Council of Trent not long after warmly approved. 
 
 By the efforts of Galvano and others, a similar seminary, some- 
 times called Paul's, and sometimes Of the Holy Faith, had been 
 erected at G-oa, lately made the seat of an Indian bishopric, — and it 
 was at this seminary, endowed and enriched by the spoils of many 
 heathen temples, that the Japanese Angiro was placed by Xavier for 
 his education. The names which he adopted at his baptism, Paul 
 of the Holy Faith, were, as it thus appears, those of the seminary 
 at which he had been educated. 
 
 But the efforts hitherto made in India on behalf of the Catholic 
 faith, if earnest, had been desultory. The establishment of the 
 order of Jesuits, in 1540, laid the foundation for a systematic attack 
 upon the religious systems of the East, and an attempt at a spirit- 
 ual revolution there, neither less vigorous nor less pertinacious than 
 that which, for the forty years preceding, had been carried on 
 by the new comers from the West against the political, commercial 
 and social institutions of those countries. 
 
 The leader in this enterprise was Francis Aspilcota, surnamed 
 Xavier, one of the seven associates of whom the infant Society of 
 Jesus, destined soon to become so powerful and so famous, origi- 
 nally consisted. He was born in 1506, in Navarre, at the foot of 
 the Pyrenees, the youngest son of a noble and numerous family, 
 of whom the younger members, and he among the rest, bore the 
 surname of Xavier. Not inclining to the profession of arms, em- 
 braced by the rest of the family, after preliminary studies at home, 
 he went to Paris, and was first a student at the College of St. Barbe, 
 and afterwards, at the age of twenty -two, professor of philosophy in 
 that of Beauvais. It was in this latter station that he first 
 became acquainted with Ignatius Lflyola, who, fifteen years older 
 than Xavier, had come to Paris to pursue, as preparatory to a 
 course of theology, those rudimentary studies which had not been 
 thought necessary for the military destination of his earlier clays. 
 This remarkable Spaniard, whose military career had been cut short 
 by a wound, which made him a cripple, had already been for years 
 a religious devotee ; and having been from his youth thoroughly 
 
SOCIETY OF JESUS. 43 
 
 impregnated with the current ideas of romantic chivalry, he was 
 already turning in his mind the formation of a new monastic order, 
 which should carry into religion the spirit of the romances. Xa. 
 vier, with whom he lived at Paris on intimate terms, — they slept, 
 indeed, in the same bed, — was one of Loyola's first disciples ; and on 
 the day of the Assumption, August 16, 1534, they two, with five 
 others, of whom three or four were still students, in a subterranean 
 chapel of the church of the abbey of Montmartre, united at a cele- 
 bration of mass by Le Fevre, who was already a priest, and in the 
 consecration of themselves by a solemn vow to religious duties. 
 This rudimentary order included, along with Loyola and Xavier, 
 three other Spaniards, Lainez, Salmaron, and Boabdilla, Rodriguez, 
 a Portuguese, and Le Fevre, a Savoyard, — all afterwards distin- 
 guished. A mission to Jerusalem, which Loyola had already visited, 
 was at that time their leading idea. 
 
 Loyola then returned home, the others remaining at Paris; 
 but with an agreement to meet at Venice before the close of 
 the year 1536, at which meeting three more were added to their 
 number. A scheme of the order was subsequently drawn up, 
 which, besides the vows of chastity and poverty, and of absolute 
 wbedience, as to God, to a general of the order, to be elected for 
 life, included, instead of the mission to Jerusalem, which the war 
 with the Turks made impracticable, a vow to go wherever the Pope 
 might send them for the salvation of souls. To procure the sanc- 
 tion of the Pope, Loyola, with Lainez and Le Fevre, spent several 
 years at Rome. His scheme, having been referred to a commission, 
 was approved by Paul III., by a bull, bearing date September 
 27th, 1640, in which the name of " Clerks of the Society of Jesus " 
 was bestowed upon the order, which was limited, however, to sixty 
 members. Loyola was elected, early in 1541, the .first general ; and 
 by a subsequent bull of Julian III., dated March 15, 1543, the so- 
 ciety was allowed to increase its members indefinitely. Its object 
 was the maintenance of the absolute authority of the church 
 as personified in the Pope, not only by resisting the rebellion 
 against it, then lately set on foot by Luther in Germany, but 
 by extending the domination of the Pope into all parts of the world. 
 To guard against the corruptions of preceding orders, the members 
 were not to accept of any church preferment, except by the positive 
 
44 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1550. 
 
 command of the Pope, nor of any fees for religious services ; nor 
 could the houses of the professed and the coadjutors (the two high- 
 est ranks of the order) have any endowments, though the colleges 
 and novitiates might. 
 
 That which gave the Jesuits their first success was their introduc- 
 tion of good works, acts of charity and humanity, a care for the 
 salvation of others, as well as* their own, into the first class of 
 duties. Instead of being bound, like the other Catholic orders, to 
 a peculiar garb and the stated repetition of formal prayers and 
 ceremonies, they wore the ordinary clerical dress, and their time 
 was to be divided between mental prayers and good works, of which 
 the education of youth, the direction of consciences, and the com 
 fort and care of the poor and sick, were the principal. In this lat- 
 ter service, novices, or probationers, who must be at least fourteen 
 years of age, of sound body, of good abilities and fair character, 
 were to be tried for two years. From the novitiate, after taking 
 the vows, the neophytes passed into the colleges, to which also 
 were attached schools for lay pupils. From the colleges they 
 might be admitted coadjutors and professed, which latter class must 
 have studied theology for four years. These two latter ranks were 
 to live in professed houses, which, unlike the colleges and novitiates, 
 could have no property, but must be supported by alms. The coad- 
 jutors were of two classes : those admitted to holy orders, from 
 which class the rectors of the colleges were appointed ; and the lay 
 coadjutors, furnishing cooks, stewards, agents, and the businessmen 
 generally of the society. The professed and the coadjutors must 
 renounce all claim to hereditary succession, not for themselves only, 
 but for the society also. There were, however, a class of lay co- 
 adjutors who simply took the vows, yet continued to enjoy their 
 property and lived in the world. 
 
 What added to the efficiency of the order was its strict military 
 organization. It had nothing about it of the republican cast of the 
 other Catholic orders, in which rotation in office occurred, chapters 
 were frequent, and many points were decided by a majority of 
 votes. The general of the Jesuits, chosen for life by a select con- 
 gregation, had absolute authority, as had also, under him, each in 
 nis sphere, the provincials, the vice-provincials, the superiors of 
 professed houses, and the rectors of colleges, all of whom the 
 
MISSION OF XAVIER TO THE EAST. 45 
 
 general might appoint and remove at pleasure. ' The general 
 received monthly reports from the provincials and vice-provincials, 
 quarterly ones from the superiors of professed houses, and rectora 
 of colleges, and half-yearly ones from every professed member. 
 Every member was bound to report to his immediate superior his 
 own misconduct or that of any of his companions. 
 
 John III., of Portugal, though very desirous of sending out a 
 competent supply of spiritual laborers to his dominions in the East, 
 could hardly find the means for it at home. There was but a 
 single university — that of Coimbra — in all Portugal, and that not 
 much frequented. John, it is true, had exerted himself in behalf 
 of that institution, by inviting professors not only from Spain, but 
 from Germany and Italy; but as yet the few Portuguese who 
 devoted themselves to study sought their education, for the most 
 part, at Complutum, or Salamanca, and some of them at Paris. 
 In this dearth of Portuguese laborers, having heard some rumor 
 of the new order of the Jesuits, John charged his ambassador at 
 Home to request the founder, Ignatius, to send him for service in 
 India not less than six members of it. Loyola, who had other 
 schemes on foot, could spare only two, one of whom, Rodriguez, the 
 original Portuguese of the order, remained behind in Portugal to 
 organize the society there, where he established at Coimbra the first 
 JesMit college. The other was Xavier, to whom, as a test of his 
 obedience — though, the order being as yet not formally authorized, 
 Loyola had no legal authority over him — the command for his 
 departure was communicated only the day beforehand, leaving him 
 scarcely time, before setting out upon so distant a journey, to say 
 farewell to his friends, and to get the rents mended in his tattered 
 and thread-bare cloak. He was indeed able to get ready the easier 
 not having, like our modern missionaries, the incumbrance or the 
 comfort of a wife and children, and no baggage to impede his 
 movements, beyond his prayer-book and the clothes on his back. 
 
 Arriving at Lisbon, he waited on the king, but immediately 
 upon leaving the palace proceeded, as was his wont, to the pub' 
 lie hospital, devoting all his time, till the ships were ready, to the 
 care and consolation of the sick and dying. While here he received 
 from the Pope the appointment of apostolic nuncio for India, with 
 full powers. Of all the offers made to him of an outfit for the 
 
46 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1550. 
 
 voyage he would for a long time accept of nothing ; but at last, lest he 
 should seem too obstinate, he consented to receive some coarse cloaks, 
 to be used in passing the Cape of Good Hope, one for himself, and one 
 for each of the two companions who were to accompany him ; like- 
 wise a few books, of which he understood there was a great scarcity 
 in India. To the offer pressed upon him of the service of a boy to 
 attend to his daily wants during the voyage, he replied, " While J. 
 have hands and feet of my own I shall need no servant." The 
 matter being still urged, with the remark that it was unfitting for a 
 man in his position to be openly seen among the crowd of sailors 
 and passengers washing his clothes or cooking- his daily food, 
 " You see," he answered, " to what a pass this art of preserving 
 ' one's dignity has brought the commonwealth of Christendom ! For 
 my part, there is no office, however humble, which, provided there 
 be no sin in it, I cannot upon occasion perform." This was a 
 specimen of his whole conduct throughout the voyage, which com- 
 menced April 7, 1541, giving rise to a remark of the captain of 
 the fleet, that it was even harder to make Xavier accept anything 
 than it was to get rid of other men's importunities. 
 
 All this self-sacrifice, accompanied as it was by a most careful 
 attention to the wants of others, was not without its reward. It 
 gave Xavier — not to mention his subsequent canonization — an 
 immense reputation with his fellow- voyagers, and a great influence 
 over them, which he did not fail to exercise. Already, amid all 
 this early austerity, the principles of Jesuitism were fully devel- 
 oped. Xavier addressed everybody, even the most notorious profli- 
 gates, with mild familiarity, no severity in his face, no harshness in 
 his words. He even volunteered himself as a sociable companion, 
 and thus acquired an influence the greater because it was hardly per- 
 ceived by those who submitted to it, so that he was generally said, by 
 those who knew him best, to have accomplished much more by his 
 familiar conversation than even by his public preaching, — of the 
 effects of which, however, very extraordinary stories were told. 
 
 He arrived at Goa in May, 1542, and, taking lodgings at a hos- 
 pital, entered at once with great zeal on the duties of his office as 
 Pope's nuncio, provincial in India of the order of Jesuits, and apos- 
 tolical missionary, professing, however, entire submission to the 
 bishop of Goa. Passing through the streets, bell in hand, he called 
 
xavier's mission thither 47 
 
 the children, women and servants, to be catechized, and, to help the 
 memory and catch the ear, he put the catechism into rhyme. But 
 it was not merely to the Christian population that he confined his 
 labors. He had to encounter the scornful fanaticism of the Mahom- 
 etans, who, setting out from Arabia, had preceded the Portuguese 
 by Centuries in commercial and military visits to the coasts of 
 India and the eastern islands, and who had in many places largely 
 diffused their religion. He had to meet the insolent bigotry of the 
 twice-born Brahmins, who, through the system of castes, held society 
 fast bound, helpless and stationary, in the fetters of an all-pervading 
 superstition. Jewish scoffers were also to be met. In fact, all sects 
 seemed to be brought together in southern India, including even an 
 ancient form of Christianity, a remnant of the followers of Zoroaster, 
 from Persia, and in Ceylon, Buddhists. After a year's stay at Groa, 
 Xavier proceeded to the southern point of Hindostan, about Cape 
 Comorin, the pearl-fishers of which region had, for the sake of 
 Portuguese protection, professed the Christian religion, of which, 
 however, they knew nothing but the name. Having preached for 
 a year or more in this district, he passed to the neighboring terri- 
 tories of the Coromandel coast, where there already existed the 
 remains before referred to of an ancient Christianity, originally 
 propagated, it seems probable, by Nestorian missionaries, of the fifth 
 or sixth century, but which the Portuguese insisted upon ascribing 
 to St. Thomas, the apostle, about whose life and labors in the East a 
 whole volume of fables was, between them and the native Christians, 
 speedily manufactured. 
 
 Incapable of staying long in one place, from India Xavier soon pro- 
 ceeded to Malacca, where he arrived towards the close of 1545, and 
 whence the next spring he set out on a missionary journey through the 
 Moluccas. It was on his return from this last expedition that he 
 first met with the Japanese Angiro, at Malacca, — as related, after 
 Pinto, in the preceding chapter, — with whom he arrived at Goa 
 in March, 1548. The Japanese were placed, as has been men- 
 tioned, in the seminary of St. Paul ; and so delighted was Xavier 
 with their progress and fervor, as to resolve to undertake, after 
 visiting his churches at Cape Comorin, a new mission to Japan. 
 
 We have seen the account given by Pinto of the origin of the 
 acquaintance between Xavier and Angiro. The biographers of the 
 
48 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542-1550. 
 
 saint, and the Jesuit historians of the Japanese mission, embellish 
 this story by the addition of several romantic particulars. Angiro, 
 they tell us, had long been troubled with remorse of conscience, for 
 which he could find no remedy, and which he only aggravated in 
 the attempt to cure it by retiring for a time to a Japanese monas- 
 tery of bonzes. Having made the acquaintance of some of the 
 earliest Portuguese adventurers to Japan, he consulted them as to 
 this malady, one of whom, by name Alvares Vaz, having heard the 
 fame of Xavier, strongly advised the inquiring Japanese to seek 
 his assistance. Angiro was much inclined to do so ; but the 
 danger and distance of the voyage deterred him, till, having killed 
 a man in a rencontre, the fear of arrest drove him to embark on 
 the first vessel he could find, which happened to be a Portuguese 
 ship bound for Malacca, and commanded by George Alvarez, a 
 great admirer of Xaviers. The good example and edifying dis- 
 course of this pious sea-captain brought Angiro to the determina- 
 tion to become a Catholic ; but being disappointed in finding Xavier 
 as he had expected, or, according to other accounts, being refused 
 baptism by the vicar of the bishop of Goa resident at Malacca, he 
 thought no more but of returning home again, and with that 
 object, not meeting with any ship bound direct for Japan, he em- 
 barked for Chincheo, in China. Thence he sailed for home ; but a 
 terrible storm drove him back to the port he had left, reviving also 
 his almost forgotten resolution to become a Catholic, in which he 
 was the more confirmed by happening to find in the harbor his old 
 Portuguese friend, Alvares Vaz, in command of a ship on her way 
 back to India. Yielding to the persuasions of this old friend, 
 Angiro sailed in his ship for Malacca ; and, on landing there, the 
 very first person whom he met was George Alvarez, who immediately 
 took him to Xavier. These accounts also give him two Japanes A 
 servants, both of whom are stated to have accompanied him to Goa, 
 and to have been baptized, one by the name of John, the other 
 Yj that of Anthony. And this last part of the story is confirmed 
 by a letter of Xavier's, dated July, 1549, and written from Malacca 
 on his way to Japan, in which letter he gives an interesting, and 
 at the same time characteristic, account of his converts, very much 
 in substance, and even in expression, like what we may read in the 
 very latest missionary reports. 
 
PAUL OF THE HOLY FAITH. 49 
 
 " No sooner," he writes, " had they been cleansed by the waters 
 of baptism, than the divine goodness shed upon them such delight, 
 and brought them to such a sense of God's beneficence towards 
 them, that through pious and spiritual joy they melted into tears. 
 In all the virtues they made such a progress as to afford us a 
 pleasant and useful subject of conversation. They also learnt to 
 read and write, and diligently attended at the appointed seasons 
 of prayer. When inquired of by me what subject of contemplation 
 affected them most, they answered, the sufferings of our Lord ; and, 
 therefore, to this contemplation they chiefly applied themselves. 
 They studied also the articles of faith, the means of redemption, 
 and the other Christian mysteries. To my frequent inquiries what 
 religious rites they found profited them the most, they always an- 
 swered, confession and communion ; adding, also, that they did not 
 see how any reasonable man could hesitate to assent to and obey 
 the requirements of Christian discipline. Paul of the Holy Faith, 
 one of the number, I once heard bursting out, with sighs, into these 
 exclamations : ' 0, miserable Japanese ! who adore as deities the 
 very things which God has made for your service ! ' And when I 
 asked him to what he referred, he answered, ' Because they worship 
 the sun and the moon, things made to serve those who know the 
 Lord Jesus ; for to what other end are they made, except to illu- 
 minate both day and night, in order that men may employ that 
 light in the worship and to the glory of God and his Son ? ' " 
 
 He mentions, in the same letter, that the voyage to Japan was so 
 dangerous, that not more than two vessels out of three were expected 
 to arrive there in safety. He even seems to have had seme temp- 
 tations to abandon the enterprise ; but in spite of numerous obstacles 
 put in his way, as he will have it, by the great adversary o'f man- 
 kind, he determined to persevere, especially as letters from Japan 
 gave encouraging information of the desire there for Christian in- 
 struction, on the part of a prince of the country who had been much 
 impressed by the efficacy of the sign of the cross, as employed by 
 certain Portuguese merchants, in driving the evil spirits from a 
 haunted house. 
 
 Another letter of Xavier's, written from Cangoxima, in Japan, 
 and dated in November, 1549, about three months after his arrival, 
 gives an account of his voyage thither. 
 5 
 
50 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1550. 
 
 Taking with him the three Japanese, Cosme de Torres, a priest, 
 and Jean Fernandes, a brother of the society, — of which, besides 
 several who had joined it in India, some ten or twelve members had 
 followed Xavier from Portugal, and had been distributed in vari- 
 ous services, — he sailed in the ship of a Chinese merchant, who had 
 agreed with the Portuguese commander at Malacca to carry him 
 to Japan. As Pinto tells the story, this merchant was a corsair, 
 and so notorious a one- as to go by the name of the Robber. 
 Xavier says nothing of that, but complains of the levity and vacil- 
 lation natural to barbarians, which made the captain linger at the 
 islands where he touched, at the risk of losing the monsoon and 
 being obliged to winter in China. Xavier was also greatly shocked 
 at the assiduous worship paid by the mariners to an idol which they 
 had on board, and before which they burnt candles and odoriferous 
 wood, seeking oracles from it as to the result of the voyage. 
 "What were our feelings, and what we suffered, you can well 
 imagine," he exclaims, " at the thought that this demon should be 
 consulted as to the whole course of our journey! " 
 
 After touching at Canton, the Chinese captain, instead of sailing 
 thence to Japan, as he had promised, followed the coast north 
 toward Chineheo ; but hearing, when he approached that port, that 
 it was blockaded by a corsair, he put off in self-defence for Japan, 
 and arrived safe in the port of Cangoxima. 
 
 Angiro, or Paul as he was now called, was well received by his 
 relations, and forty days were spent by Xavier in laborious appli- 
 cation to the rudiments of the language, and by Paul in translating 
 into Japanese the ten commandments, and other parts of the Chris- 
 tian faith, which Xavier determined, so he writes, to have printed 
 as soon as possible, especially as most of the Japanese could read. 
 Angiro also devoted himself to exhortations and arguments among 
 his relations and friends, and soon made converts of his wife and 
 daughter, and many besides, of both sexes. An interview was had 
 with the king of Satsuma, — in which province Cangoxima was 
 situated, — and he presently issued an edict allowing his subjects to 
 embrace the new faith. This beginning seemed promising; but 
 Xavier already anticipated a violent opposition so soon as his 
 object came to be fully understood. He drew consolation, how 
 ever, from the spiritual benefits enjoyed by himself, " since in these 
 
COSME JjE TORRES. 5i 
 
 remote regions," so he wrote, " amid the impious worshippers of 
 demons, so very far removed from almost every mortal aid and con- 
 solation, we almost of necessity, as it were, forget and lose ourselves 
 in God, which hardly can happen in a Christian land, where the love 
 of parents and country, intimacies, friendships and affinities, and 
 helps at hand both for body and mind, intervene, as it were, be- 
 tween man and God, to the forgetfulness of the latter." And what 
 tended to confirm this spiritual state of mind was the entire free- 
 dom in Japan " from those delights which elsewhere stimulate the 
 flesh and break down the strength of mind and body. The Japan- 
 ese," he wrote, " rear no animals for food. Sometimes they ea* 
 fish ; — they have a moderate supply of rice and wheat ; but they 
 live, for the most part, on vegetables and fruits ; and yet they attain 
 to such a good old age, as clearly to show how little nature, else- 
 where so insatiable, really demands." 
 
 Angiro himself wrote at the same time a short letter to the 
 brethren at Goa, but it adds nothing to the information contained 
 in Xavier's. 
 
 The following account, which Cosme de Torres,* a Spaniard by 
 birth, Xavier's principal assistant, and his successor at the head 
 of the mission, gives of himself in a letter written from Goa to the 
 Society in Europe, just before setting out, shows, like other cases to 
 be mentioned hereafter, that it was by no means merely from the 
 class of students that the order of the Jesuits was at its commence- 
 ment recruited. 
 
 Though always inclined, so Cosme writes, to religion, yet many 
 things and various desires for a long time distracted him. In the 
 year 1538, in search he knew not of what, he sailed from Spain to 
 the Canaries, whence he visited the West Indies and the continent 
 of New Spain, where he passed four years in the greatest abun- 
 dance, and satiety even, of this world's goods. But desiring some- 
 thing greater and more solid, in 1542 he embarked on board a fleet 
 of six ships, fitted out by Mendosa, the viceroy of New Spain, to 
 explore and occupy the islands of the Pacific, discovered by Magel- 
 lan in 1521. Standing westward, on the fifty-fifth day they 
 fell in, so Cosme writes, with a numerous cluster of very small, low 
 islands, of which the inhabitants lived on fish and the leaves of 
 
 * In the Latin version of the Jesuit letters he is called Ccsmus Turrianus. 
 
62 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1550. 
 
 trees. Ten days after, they saw a beautiful island, covered with 
 palms, but the wind prevented their landing. In another ten o A 
 twelve days, the ships reached the great island of Mindanao, two 
 hundred leagues in circumference, but with few inhabitants. Sail- 
 ing thence to the south they discovered a small island abounding in 
 meat and rice ; but having, during half a year's residence, lost fou* 
 hundred men in contests with the natives, who used poisoned arrows, 
 they sailed to the Moluccas, where they remained about two years, 
 till it was finally resolved, not having the means to get back to 
 New Spain, to apply to the Portuguese governor to forward them 
 to Goa. At Amboina, Cosme met with Xavier, whose conversa- 
 tion revived his religious inclinations; and, proceeding to Goa, he 
 was ordained a priest by the bishop there, who placed him in charge 
 of a cure. But he found no peace of mind till he betook himself 
 to the college of St. Paul (which seems by this time to have passed 
 into the hands of the Jesuits), being the more confirmed in his res- 
 olution to join the order, by the return of Xavier to Goa, whose 
 invitation to accompany him to Japan he joyfully accepted, and 
 where he continued for twenty years to labor as a missionary. 
 
 Cosme, in his letter above quoted, says nothing of any hostile 
 collision of the Spanish ships, in which he reached the East, with 
 the Portuguese ; but it appears, from Galvano's account of this 
 expedition, that such collision did take place. He also gives, as 
 the reason why the Spaniards did not land on Mindanao, the oppo- 
 sition they experienced from some of the princes of it, who, by his own 
 recent efforts, had been converted to Catholicism ; and who, having 
 given their obediejice to him, would by no means incur his dis- 
 pleasure by entertaining these interloping Spaniards. 
 
 One of the Spanish ships was sent back to New Spain with news 
 of their success thus far. This ship passed among the northern 
 islands of the group, which seem now first to have received the name 
 of the Philippines. Another fleet sailed from' Seville, in the year 
 1544, to cooperate with Rui Lopes ; but none of the ships succeeded 
 in passing the Straits of Magellan, except one small bark, which ran 
 up the coast to Peru. The Spaniards made no further attempts in 
 the East till the expiration of ten years or more, when the Philip* 
 pines were finally colonized — an event not without its influence 
 upon the affairs of Japan. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF JAPAN, AS FOUND BY THE PORTU 
 
 GUESE. THE JACATAS, OR KINGS, AND THEIR VASSALS. REVENUES.— 
 
 MONEY. — DISTINCTION OF RANKS. THE KUBO-SAMA. THE DAIRI. — 
 
 SINTO. BUDDHISM. SlUTO. A. D. 1550. 
 
 Japan, as found by the Portuguese, embraced three large islands, 
 besides many smaller ones. Ximo (or Kiusiu), the most southern 
 and western of the group, and the one with which the Portuguese 
 first became acquainted, is separated at the north, by a narrow 
 strait, from the much larger island of Nipon, forming with its 
 western portion a right angle, within which the third and much 
 smaller island of Sikokf is included. These islands were found 
 to be divided into sixty-six separate governments, or king- 
 doms, of which Nipon contained fifty-three, Ximo (or Kiusiu) 
 nine, and Sikokf four — the numerous smaller islands being 
 reckoned as appurtenant to one or another of the three larger 
 ones. These kingdoms, grouped into eight, or rather nine, larger 
 divisions, and subdivided into principalities, of' which, in all, 
 there were not less than six hundred, had originally (at least 
 such was the Japanese tradition) been provinces of a consol- 
 idated empire ; but by degrees and by dint of civil wars, by which 
 the islands had been, and still were, very much distracted, they had 
 reached, at the period of the Portuguese discovery, a state of almost 
 complete independence. Indeed, several of the kingdoms, like that 
 of Figen, in the west part of Ximo, had still further disintegrated 
 into independent principalities. 
 
 It still frequently happened, however, that several provinces were 
 
 united under one ruler ; and such was especially the case with five 
 
 central provinces of Nipon, including the great cities of Miako, 
 
 Ozaka, and Sakai, which five provinces formed the patrimony of a 
 
 5*= 
 
54 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550. 
 
 prince who bore the title of Kubo-Sama — Sama meaning lord, 
 and Kubo general or commander. This title the Portuguese ren- 
 dered into Emperor, and it was almost precisely equivalent to the 
 original sense of the Imperator of the Romans, though still more 
 exactly corresponding to Cromwell's title of Lord-general. 
 
 This Kubo-Sama, or Siogun, as he was otherwise called, waa 
 acknowledged by all the other princes as in some respect their supe- 
 rior and head. The other rulers of provinces bore the title of 
 Sougo or Jacata, which the Portuguese rendered by the term King. 
 Reserving to themselves, as their personal domain, a good half of 
 the whole extent of their territories, these chiefs divided the rest 
 among certain great vassals, called Tono, Conisu, or Kounidaimio. 
 who were bound to military service in proportion to the extent of 
 the lands which they held ; which lands" after reserving a portion 
 for their private domain, these nobles distributed in their turn to 
 other inferior lords, called Joriki, who held of them upon similar 
 conditions of military service, and who had still beneath them, upon 
 the same footing, a class of military vassals and tenants, called 
 Dosiu, and corresponding to the men-at-arms of the feudal times 
 of Europe. The actual cultivators of the lands — as had also been 
 and still to a considerable extent was, the case in feudal Europe — 
 were in the condition of serfs. 
 
 Thus it happened, that, as in feudal Europe, so in Japan, great 
 armies might be very suddenly raised ; and war being the chief 
 employment of the superior classes, and the only occupation, that 
 of the priesthood excepted, esteemed honorable, the whole country 
 was in a constant state of turbulence and commotion. 
 
 All the classes above enumerated, except the last, enjoyed the 
 highly-prized honor of wearing two swords. One sword was worn 
 by certain inferior officials ; but merchants, traders and artisans 
 were confounded, as to this matter, with the peasants, not being per- 
 mitted to wear any. The revenue of the princes and other proprie- 
 tors was, and still is, reckoned in koku or kokf of rice, each of 
 three sacks, or bales, each bale containing (according to Titsingh) 
 thirty-three and one third gantings — the universal Japanese meas 
 ure for all articles, liquid or dry — and weighing from eighty-two 
 to eighty-three katties, or somewhat more than a hundred of our 
 
REVENUES AND MONEY. 55 
 
 pounds * Ten thousand kokf make a man-kokf, in which the rev- 
 enues cf the great princes are reckoned. The distinction of rank 
 was very strictly observed, being even ingrained into the language.! 
 Inferiors being seated on their heels, according to the Japanese 
 fashion, testified their respect for their superiors by laying the 
 palms of their hands on the floor, and bending their bodies so low 
 that their foreheads almost touched the ground, in which position 
 they remained for some seconds. This is called the kitu. The 
 superior responded by laying the palms of his hands upon his knees, 
 and nodding or bowing, more or less low, according to the rank of 
 the other party. 
 
 As to everything that required powers of analysis, or the capacity 
 of taking general views, the Portuguese missionaries were but poor 
 observers ; yet they could not but perceive in the Dairi the surviv- 
 ing shadow, and indeed, in the earlier days of the missions,* ome- 
 
 * It appears from Golownin that there are also smaller packages, of which 
 three make the large one. The price of rice varied, of course ; but Kampfer 
 gives five or six taels of silver as the average value of the kokf. Titsingh 
 represents the kokf as corresponding to the gold kobang, the national coin 
 of the Japanese. The original kobang weighed forty-seven konderins, or 
 rather more than our eagle ; but, till the year 1672, it passed in Japan as 
 equivalent to about six taels of silver. The present kobang contains only 
 half as much gold ; and yet, as compared with silver, is rated still higher. 
 The kobang is figured by Kampfer as an oblong coin rounded at the ends, the 
 surface, on one side, marked with four rows of indented lines, and bearing 
 at each end the arms or symbol of the Dairi, and between them a mark 
 showing the value, and the signature of the master of the mint. The other 
 side was smooth, and had only the stamp of the inspector -general of gold and 
 silver money. Kampfer also figures the obani, which even in his time had be- 
 come veiy rare, similar to the kobang, but of ten times the weight and value. 
 A third gold coin was the itsibo, figured by Kampfer as an oblong square. 
 According to Thunburg, it was of the value of a quarter of the kobang. Silver 
 passed by weight. The Japanese do not appear to have had any silver coins, 
 unless lumps of irregular shape and weight, but bearing certain marks and 
 stamps, were to be so considered. In ordinary retail transactions copper sent, 
 or leas, as the Chinese name was, were employed. They were round, with a 
 square hole in the middle, by which they were strung. Some were of double 
 size and value, and some of iron. For further information on the Japanese 
 monetary system, and on the present state and value of the Japanese circu- 
 iting medium, see chapters xxv., xxxix., and xL ,r i. 
 t See Appendix, note A 
 
06 JAPAN. — A. D. 1281— 1550. 
 
 thing more than a mere shadow, of a still more ancient form of gov- 
 ernment, in which the civil and ecclesiastical authority had .both 
 been united under one head. 
 
 The Dairi,* Yo, or Mikado, as he "was otherwise designated, had 
 for his residence the north-east quarter of Miako (a great city, not 
 far from the centre of Nipon, but nearest the southern shore). This 
 quarter was of vast extent, surrounded by a wall, with a ditch and 
 rampart, by which it was separated from the rest of the city. In the 
 midst of this fortified place, in a vast palace, easily distinguished from 
 a distance by the height of its tower, the Dairi dwelt, with his empress 
 or chief wife ; his other eleven wives had adjoining palaces in a cir- 
 cle around, outside of which were the dwellings of his chamberlains 
 and other officers. These Dairi claimed to be descended from Sy?i- 
 Mu, who, it was said, had, a. c. 660, introduced civilization into 
 Japan, and first established a regular government, and commencing 
 with whom, the Japanese annals show a regular series of Dairi, 
 who are represented as having been for many ages the sole lords 
 and imperial rulers of Japan, till, at length, they had been insensi- 
 bly set aside, as to the actual exercise of authority, by the Cubo- 
 Sama, or commanders of the armies. Yet these gradually 
 eclipsed and finally superseded emperors — equivalents of the 
 " idle kings " of the Carlo vingian race of France, or to the present 
 nominal sovereign of the British empire — were, and still are, 
 treated (as Queen Victoria is) with all the ceremonial of sub- 
 stantial power, and even with the respect and reverence due to the 
 spiritual head of the national church, -descended from a race of 
 divinities, and destined at death to pass by a regular apotheosis into 
 the list of the national gods. 
 
 All the revenue drawn from the city of Miako and its dependen- 
 cies was appropriated to their support, to which the Kubo-Sama 
 added a further sum from his treasury. He himself treated the 
 Dairi with as much ceremonious respect and semi-worship as the' 
 British prime minister bestows upon the British queen. He paid 
 an annual visit to the court of the Dairi in great state, and with 
 all the carriage of an inferior ; but took care to maintain a garri- 
 
 * Dairi, in its original sense, is said, by Rodriguez, in his Japanese gram- 
 mar, to signify rather the court than the person of the theocratic chief t« 
 whom it is applied ; and so of most of the titles mentioned in the text. 
 
THE DAIRI AND HIS COURT. 57 
 
 son at Miako, or its neighborhood, sufficient to repress any attempt 
 on the part of the Dairi or his partisans to reestablish the old 
 order of things, — an idea which, when the islands first became 
 known to the Portuguese, seems not yet to have been entirely 
 abandoned. 
 
 We may trace a still further resemblance between the position of 
 the Dairi of Japan and the Queen of England, in the circumstance 
 that all public acts are dated by the years of his reign, and that 
 all titles of honor nominally emanate from him, though of course 
 obliged, as to this matter, to follow the suggestions of the Kubo- 
 Sama. Even the Kubo-Sama himself condescends, like a British 
 prime minister, to accept such decorations at the hands of the Dairi, 
 aifecting to feel extremely honored and flattered at titles which had 
 been, in fact, dictated by himself. 
 
 The whole court of the Dairi, and all the inhabitants of the quar- 
 ter of Miako in which he dwelt, consisted of persons who plumed 
 themselves upon the idea of being, like the Dairi himself, descended 
 from Tensio Ddi-Dsin, the first of the demigods, and who in 
 consequence looked down, like the Indian Brahmins, upon all the 
 rest of the nation as an inferior race, distinguishing themselves as 
 Kuge, and .all the rest of the nation as Gege. These Kuge, who 
 may be conjectured to have once formed a class resembling the old 
 Roman patricians, all wore a particular dress, by which was indi- 
 cated, not only their character as members of that order, but, by the 
 length of their sashes, the particular rank which they held in it ; a 
 distinction the more necessary, since, as generally happens with 
 these aristocracies of birth, many of the members were in a state of 
 poverty, and obliged to support themselves by various handicrafts.* 
 
 Of the magnificence of the court of the Dairi, and of the ceremo- 
 nials of it, the missionaries reported many stories, chiefly, of course, 
 on the credit of hearsay. It was said that the Dairi was never 
 allowed to breathe the common air, nor his foot 'to touch the 
 ground ; that he never wore the same garment twice, nor eat a 
 
 * According to Rodriguez, there had been also an ancient military nobil- 
 ity, called buke ; but in the course of the civil wars many families of it had 
 become extinct, while other humble families, who had risen by way of 
 arms, mostly formed the existing nobility, 
 
D8 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550. 
 
 second time from the same dishes, which, after each meal, were 
 carefully broken, — for, should any other person attempt to dine 
 from them, he would infallibly perish by an inflammation of the 
 throat. Nor could any one who attempted to wear the Dairi's cast- 
 off garments, without his permission, escape a similar punishment. 
 The Dairi, as we are told, was, in ancient times, obliged to seat 
 himself every morning on his throne, with the crown on his head, 
 and there to hold himself immovable for several hours like a statue. 
 This immobility, it was imagined, was an augury of the tranquillity 
 of the empire ; and if he happened to move ever so little, or even to 
 turn his eyes, war, famine, fire, or pestilence, was expected soon to 
 afflict the unhappy province toward which he had squinted. But as 
 the country was thus kept in a state of perpetual agitation, the 
 happy substitute was finally hit upon of placing the crown upon the 
 throne without the Dairi — a more fixed immobility being thus 
 assured ; and, as Kampfer dryly observes, one doubtless producing 
 much the same good effects. 
 
 At the time of the arrival of Xavier in Japan the throne of the 
 Dairi was filled by Gronara, the hundred and sixth, according to 
 the Japanese chronicles, in the order of succession ; while the throne 
 of the Kubo-Sama was occupied by Josi Far, who was succeeded, the 
 next year, by his son, Josi Tir, the twenty-fourth of these officers, 
 according to the Japanese, since their assumption of sovereign 
 power in the person .of Joritomo, a. d. 1185. 
 
 The Japanese annals, which are scarcely more than a chronologi- 
 cal table of successions, cast little light upon the causes and progress 
 of this revolution ; # but, from the analogy of similar cases, we may 
 conjecture that it was occasioned, at least in part, by the introduction 
 into Japan, and the spread there, of a new religion, gradually super- 
 
 * According to. the Japanese historical legends, the office of Cubo-Sama, 
 originally limited to the infliction of punishments and the suppression of 
 crimes, was shared, for many ages, between the two families of Ghenji and 
 Feiji, till about 1180, when a civil war broke out between these families, and, 
 the latter, having triumphed, assumed such power that the Dairi commis- 
 sioned Joritomo, a member of the defeated family of Ghenji, to inflict punish- 
 ment upon him. Joi'itomo renewed the war, killed Feiji, and was himself 
 appointed Kubo-Sama, but ended with usurping a greater power than any 
 of his predecessors. 
 
RELIGIOUS SYSTEM OF SINTO. 59 
 
 seding, to a great extent, the old system, of which the Dairi was 
 the head. 
 
 One might kave expected from the Portuguese missionaries a 
 pretty exact account of the various creeds and sects of Japan, 
 or, at least, of the two leading religions, between which the great 
 bulk of the people were divided; instead of which they confound 
 perpetually the ministers of the two religions under the common 
 name of bonzes, taking very little pains to distinguish between two 
 systems both of which they regarded as equally false and pernicious. 
 Their attention, indeed, seems to have been principally fixed on the 
 new religion, that of Buddha, or Fo, of which the adherents were by far 
 the most numerous, and the hierarchy the most compact and for 
 midable, presenting, in its organization and" practices (with, however, 
 on some points a very different set of doctrines), a most singular 
 counterpart to the Catholic church, — a similarity which the mis- 
 sionaries could only explain by the theory of a diabolical imitation ; 
 and which some subsequent Catholic writers have been inclined to 
 ascribe, upon very unsatisfactory grounds, to the ancient labors of 
 Armenian and Nestorian missionaries, being extremely unwilling to 
 admit what seems, however, very probable, if not, indeed, certain, 
 — little attention has as yet been given to this interesting inquiry, — 
 that some leading ideas of the Catholic church have been derived from 
 Buddhist sources, whose missionaries, while penetrating, as we know 
 they did, to the East, and converting entire nations, may well be 
 supposed not to have been without their influence also on the West. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the general prevalence, at the time 
 when Japan first became known to Europeans, of the doctrine of 
 Buddha, — of which there would seem to have been quite a number 
 of distinct observances, not unlike the different orders of monks and 
 friars in the Catholic church, — it appears, as well from the memoirs 
 of the Jesuit missionaries, as from more exact and subsequent ob- 
 servations made by residents in the Dutch service, that there also 
 existed another and more ancient religious system, with which the 
 person and authority of the Dairi had been and still were closely 
 identified. This system was known as the religion of Sinto, or of 
 the Kami — a name given not only to the seven mythological per- 
 sonages, or celestial gods, who compose the first Japanese dynasty, 
 and to the five demigods, or terrestrial gods, who compose the second 
 
60 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550. 
 
 (two dynasties which, as in the similar mythology of the Egyptians 
 and Hindoos, were imagined to have extended through immense 
 and incomprehensible ages preceding the era of Syn-Mu), but in- 
 cluding also the whole series of the Dairi, who traced their descent 
 from the first of the demigods, and who, though regarded during 
 their lives as mere men, yet at their deaths underwent, as in the 
 case of the Roman Caesars, a regular apotheosis, by which they 
 were added to the number of the Kami, or Sin, — words both of 
 which had the same signification, namely, inhabitants of heaven * 
 A like apotheosis was also extended to all who had seemed to 
 deserve it by their sanctity, their miracles, or their great bene- 
 factions. 
 
 The Kami of the first dynasty, the seven superior gods, being 
 regarded as too elevated above the earth to concern themselves in 
 what is passing on it, the chief object of the worship of the adhe- 
 rents of this ancient system was the goddess Tensio Dai-Dsin, 
 already mentioned as the first of the demigods, and the supposed 
 progenitor of the Dairi, and of the whole order of the Kuge. Of 
 this Tensio Dai-Dsin, and of her heroic and miraculous deeds, a 
 vast many fables were in circulation. Even those who had quitted 
 the ancient religion to embrace the new sects paid a sort of wor- 
 ship to the pretended mother of the Japanese nation ; and there 
 was not a considerable city in the empire in which there was not 
 a temple to her honor. On the other hand, the religion of the 
 Kami, by its doctrine of the apotheosis of all great saints and 
 great heroes, gave, like the old pagan religions, a hospitable recep- 
 tion to all new gods, so that even the rival demigod, Buddha, came 
 to be regarded by many as identical with Tensio Dai-Dsin, - — a 
 circumstance which will serve to explain the great intermixture of 
 religious ideas found in Japan, and the alleged fact, very remark- 
 able, if true, that, till after the arrival of the Portuguese missiona- 
 ries, religious persecution had never been known there. 
 
 Each of these numerous demigods was supposed by the adherents 
 of the religion of Sinto to preside over a special paradise of his 
 
 * The word Kami is also doubly used as a title of honor conferred with the 
 sanction of the Dairi, somewhat equivalent, says Kampfer, in one case, to 
 the European title of chevalier, and in the other, to that of count. Golow- 
 nin insists that it implies something spiritual. 
 
RELIGIOUS SYSTEM OF SLNTO. 61 
 
 own ; this one in the air, that one at the bottom of the sea, one in 
 the moon and another in the sun, and so on ; and each devotee, 
 ehoosing his god according to the paradise that pleased him best, 
 spared no pains to gain admission into it. For what St. Paul had 
 said of the Athenians, might, according to the missionaries, be 
 applied with equal truth to the Japanese — they were excessively 
 superstitious, and this superstition had so multiplied temples, that 
 there was scarcely a city in which, counting all the smaller chapels, 
 the number did not seem at least equal to that of the most pious 
 Catholic countries. 
 
 The- temples of the Sinto religion, called Mias, were and still are 
 — for in this respect no change has taken place — ordinarily built 
 upon eminences, in retired spots, at a distance from bustle and busi 
 ness, surrounded by groves and approached by a grand avenue hav- 
 ing a gate of stone or wood, and bearing a tablet or door-plate, of 
 a foot and a half square, which announces, in gilded letters, the 
 name of the Kami to whom the temple is consecrated. These exte- 
 rior appendages would seem to foretell a considerable structure ; 
 but within there is usually found only a wretched little building of 
 wood, half hid among trees and shrubbery, about eighteen feet in 
 length, breadth and height, all its dimensions being equal, and with 
 only a single grated window, through which the interior may be 
 seen empty, or containing merely a mirror of polished metal, set in a 
 frame of braided straw, or hung about with fringes of white paper. 
 Just within the entrance of the enclosure stands a basin of water, 
 by washing in which the worshippers may. purify themselves. 
 Beside the temple is a great chest for the reception of alms, part- 
 ly by which, and partly by an allowance from the Dairi, the guard- 
 ians of the temples are supported, while at the gate hangs a gong, 
 on which the visitant announces his arrival. Most of these temples 
 have also an antechamber, in which sit those who have the charge, 
 clothed in rich garments. There are commonly also in the enclos 
 ure a number of little chapels, or miniature temples, portable so at 
 to be carried in religious processions. All of these temples an 
 built after one model, the famous one of Isje, near the centre ol 
 the island of Nipon, and which within the enclosure is equally 
 bumble with all the rest. 
 
 The worship consists in prayers and prostrations. Works of 
 6 
 
62 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550. 
 
 religious merit are, casting a contribution into the alms-chest, and 
 avoiding or expiating the impurities supposed to be the consequence 
 of being touched by blood, of eating of the flesh of any quadruped 
 except the deer, and to a less extent even that of any bird, of kill- 
 ing any animal, of coming in contact with a dead person, or even, 
 among the more scrupulous, of seeing, hearing of, or speaking of 
 any such impurities. To these may be added, as works of religious 
 merit, the celebration of festivals, of which there are two principal 
 ones in each month, being the first and fifteenth day of it, besides 
 five greater ones distributed through the year, and lasting some of 
 them for several days, in which concerts, spectacles and theatrical 
 exhibitions, form a leading part. We must add the going on 
 pilgrimages, to which, indeed, all the religious of Japan are greatly 
 addicted. The pilgrimage esteemed by the adherents of Sinto as 
 the most meritorious, and which all are bound to make once a 
 year, or, at least, once in their life, is that of Isje, or Ixo, the name 
 of a central province on the south coast of Nipon, in which Tensio 
 Dai-Dsin was reported to have been born and to have died, and 
 which contains a Mia exceedingly venerated, and already mentioned 
 as the model after which all the others are built. 
 
 Though it is not at all easy to distinguish what, either of cere- 
 mony or doctrine, was peculiar or original in the system of Sinto,* 
 
 * The following system of Japanese cosmogony is given by Klaproth, as 
 contained in an imperfect volume of Chinese and Japanese chronology, 
 printed in Japan, in Chinese characters, without date, but which for more 
 than a hundred years past has been in the Royal Library of Paris : " At 
 first the heaven and the earth were not separated, the perfect principle and 
 the imperfect principle were not disjoined ; chaos, under the form of an egg, 
 contained the breath [of life], self-produced, including the germs of all 
 things. Then what was pure and perfect ascended upwards, and formed 
 the heavens (or sky), while what was dense and impure coagulated, was 
 precipitated, and produced the earth. The pure and excellent principles 
 formed whatever is light, whilst whatever was dense and impure descended 
 by its own gravity ; consequently the sky was formed prior to the earth. 
 After their completion, a divine being (Kami) was born in the midst of 
 them. Hence, it has been said, that at the reduction of chaos, an island 
 of soft earth emerged, as a fish swims upon "the water. At this period 
 a thing resembling a shoot of the plant assi [Eryanthus Japonicus] was 
 produced between the heavens and the earth. This shoot was metamorphosed 
 
BUDDHISM. 63 
 
 yet in general that system seems to have been much less austere 
 than the rival doctrine of Buddha, which teaches that sorrow is in- 
 separable from existence, the only escape from it being in annihi- 
 lation. The adherents of Sinto were, on the other hand, much more 
 disposed to look upon the bright side of things, turning their relig- 
 ious festivals into holidays, and regarding people in sorrow and 
 distress as unfit for the worship of the gods, whose felicity ought 
 not to be disturbed by the sight of pain and misery. And this, 
 perhaps, was one of the causes that enabled the religion of Buddha, 
 which addresses itself more to the sorrowing hearts of which the 
 world is so full, to obtain that predominancy of which the Portu- 
 guese missionaries found it in possession. 
 
 Of this religion of Buddha, by no means peculiar to Japan, but 
 prevailing through the whole of central and south-eastern Asia, and 
 having probably more adherents than any other religious creed, it 
 is not necessary here to speak at any length. A much more cor- 
 rect idea of it is to be obtained from the recorded observations of 
 our* modern missionaries, and from the elaborate investigations of 
 Abel Remusat, and several other learned orientalists, who have shed 
 a flood of light upon this interesting subject, than can be gathered 
 from the letters of the Portuguese missionaries, whose comprehen- 
 sion of the Buddhist doctrine was, on many important points, espe- 
 cially as to the cardinal one of annihilation, exceedingly confused, 
 contradictory and erroneous ; and, indeed, the same confusion and 
 error exists in almost all European travellers in the East, down to 
 a very recent period. Suffice it to say, that in the austerities and 
 contempt for the world and its pleasures, practised and professed 
 by the bonzes of the Buddhists, even Xavier and his brother Jesuits 
 found their match ; while, in the hierarchy into which those bonzes 
 were arranged; the foreign language, imperfectly known even to 
 themselves, of their sacred books and their liturgy, and which recent 
 investigations have detected to be, with the bonzes of China and 
 Japan, not Pali, alone but also pure Sanscrit ; their doctrine of 
 celibacy ; the establishment of monasteries and nunneries ; their 
 
 and became the god [first of the seven superior gods] who bears . the hono- 
 rific title of Kami toko kontsi-no mikoto, that is to say, the venerable one 
 who constantly supports the empire." 
 
64 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550. 
 
 orders of begging devotees ; their exterior of purity and self-denial, 
 but supposed secret licentiousness ; * their fasts ; their garbs ; the 
 tinkling of bells ; the sign of the cross ; the rosaries on which they 
 counted their prayers ; the large number of persons of noble birth 
 who entered upon the- clerical life; their manner of preaching; their 
 religious processions ; their pilgrimages ; the size, splendor and 
 magnificence, of their temples, known as Tiras, the roofs supported 
 by tall pillars of cedar ; the altar within, and the lamps and in- 
 cense burning there ; the right of asylum possessed by the Tiras ; 
 and even the practice of confession, prayers for the dead, and the 
 sale of merit ; — in all these respects, this system presented a com- 
 plete counterpart at least to the show and forms and priestly devices 
 of that very scheme of Boman Catholic worship which Xavier and 
 his brother missionaries sought to introduce into Japan. The only 
 striking difference was in the images, often of gigantic s i Z e to be 
 found in the Tiras, but which, after all, were no more than a set-off 
 against the pictures of the Catholic churches. 
 
 At the head of the Buddhist hierarchy was a ■ high priest called 
 Xako, resident at Miako, and having much the same spiritual pre- 
 rogative with the Pope of Rome, including the canonization of saints. 
 With him rested the consecration of the Tundies, corresponding to 
 the bishops, or rather to the abbots of the Catholic church — all the 
 Buddhist clergy being, in the language of Borne, regulars (similar, 
 that is, to the monks and friars), and living together in monasteries 
 of which the Tundies were the heads. These Tundies, however, 
 could not enter upon their offices, to which great revenues were 
 attached, except by the consent of the temporal authorities, which 
 took care to limit the interference of the Xako and the Tundies 
 strictly to spiritual matters.! 
 
 * In reading the accounts of the bonzes, and of the delusions which they 
 practised on the people, contained in the letters of the Catholic missionaries, 
 and the denunciations levelled against them in consequence, in those letters, 
 one might almost suppose himself to be reading a Protestant sermon against 
 Popery, or an indignant leader against the papists in an evangelical news- 
 paper. The missionaries found, however, at least they say so, among other 
 theological absurdities maintained by the bonzes, a number of the " damnable 
 Lutheran tenets." 
 
 t Buddha, or the sage (which the Chinese, by the metamorphosis made by 
 their pronunciation of most foreign proper names, have changed first into 
 
BUDDHISM. 65 
 
 There was this further resemblance also to the regular orders of 
 the lloinish church, that the Buddhist clergy were divided into a 
 number of observances, hardly less hostile to each other than the 
 Dominicans to the Franciscans, or both to the Jesuits. But as -the 
 church and state were kept in Japan perfectly distinct — as now in 
 the United States — - and as the bonzes possessed no direct tempo- 
 ral power, there was no appeal to the secular arm, no civil punish- 
 ments for heresy, and no religious vows perpetually binding, all 
 
 Fuh-hi, and then into Fuh, or Fo), is not the personal name of the great 
 saint, the first preacher of the religion of the Buddhists, but a title of honor 
 given to him after he had obtained to. eminent sanctity. According to the 
 concurrent traditions of the Buddhists in various parts of Asia, he was the 
 son of a king of central India, Suddho-dana, meaning in Sanscrit pure- 
 eating king, or eater of pure food, which the Chinese have translated into 
 their language by Zung-fung-ivang. His original name was Leh-ta ; after 
 he became a priest, he was called Sakia-mouni, that is, devotee of the race 
 of Sakia, whence 'the appellation Siaka, by which he is commonly known in 
 Japan, and also the name Xako applied to the patriarch, or head of the 
 Buddhist church. Another Sanscrit • patronymic of Buddha is Gautuma, 
 which in different Buddhist nations has, in conjunction with other epithets 
 applied to him, been variously changed and corrupted. Thus among 
 the Siamese he is called Summana-kodoin. 
 
 The Buddhist mythology includes several Buddhas who preceded Sakia- 
 mouni, and the first of whom, ./Mi- Buddha, or the first Buddha, was when 
 nothing else was, being in fact the primal deity, and origin of all things. 
 It seems to be this first Buddha who is worshipped in Japan under the 
 name of Amida, and whose priests form the most numerous and influential 
 of the Buddhist orders. Siebold seems inclined' to regard them as pure 
 monotheists. 
 
 The birth of Siaka is fixed by the Japanese annalists, or at least by the 
 book of chronology quoted in a previous note, in the twenty-sixth year of 
 the emperor Chaou-wang, of the Chinese Chew Dynasty, b. c. 1027. b. c. 
 1006, he fled from his father's house to become a priest; b. c. 998 he reached 
 the highest step of philosophical knowledge ; b. c. 949, being seventy-nine 
 years of age, he entered into JVirvana, that is,. died. He was succeeded by a 
 regular succession of Buddhist patriarchs, of whom twenty-eight were na- 
 tives of Hindustan. The twenty-eighth emigrated to China, A. D. 490, where 
 he had five Chinese successors. Under the second of these, a. d. 552, Buddh- 
 ism was introduced into Japan. A. d. 713, the sixth and the last Chi- 
 nese patriarch died, since which the Chinese Buddhists, and those who have 
 received the religion from them, seem not to have acknowledged any general 
 head, but only a local head in each country. 
 
 6* 
 
66 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550. 
 
 being at liberty, so far as the civil law was concerned, to enter of 
 leave the monasteries at pleasure. It was also another result of 
 this separation of state and church — as here in the United States—* 
 that there was only needed a Jo Smith, a man hardy or self-deceived 
 enough to pretend to inspiration, to set up a new observance ; an 
 occurrence by which the theology of Japan had become from time 
 to time more and more diversified. 
 
 There were also, besides the more regular clergy, enthusiasts, or 
 impostors, religious vagabonds who lived by beggary, and by pre- 
 tending to drive away evil spirits, to find things lost, to discover rob- 
 bers, to determine guilt or innocence of accused parties, to interpret 
 dreams, to predict the future, to cure desperate maladies, and other 
 similar feats, which they performed chiefly through the medium, not 
 of a table, but of a child, into whom they pretended to make a spirit 
 enter, able to answer all their questions. Such, in particular, were 
 the Jammabos, or mountain priests, an order of the religion of Sinto. 
 
 Yet, exceedingly superstitious as the Japanese were, there was not 
 wanting among them a sect of Rationalists, the natural result of 
 freedom of opinion, who regarded all these practices and doctrines, 
 and all the various creeds of the country, with secret incredulity, 
 and even contempt. These Rationalists, known as Siudosiu, and 
 their doctrine as Siuto, and found chiefly among the upper classes, 
 looked up to the Chinese Confucius as their master and teacher. 
 They treated the system of Buddha with open hostility, as mere im- 
 posture and falsehood ; but, in order to avoid the odium of being 
 destitute of all religion, conformed, at least so far as external ob- 
 servances were concerned, to the old national system of Sinto. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CIVILIZATION OP THE JAPANESE. — ANIMALS. AGRICULTURE. ARTS. — • 
 
 HOUSES. SHIPS. LITERATURE. JURISPRUDENCE. CHARACTER OF THH 
 
 JAPANESE. THEIR CUSTOM OP CUTTING THEMSELVES OPEN. A. D. 1550. 
 
 The doctrine of the transmigration of souls, one of the most dis- 
 tinguishing tenets of the Buddhist faith, had not failed to confirm the 
 Japanese in a distaste for animal food, which had originated, per- 
 haps, from the small number of animals natives of that insular 
 country, — an abstinence, indeed, which even the ancient religion 
 of Sinto had countenanced by denouncing as impure the act of 
 killing any animal, or being sprinkled with the slightest drop of 
 blood. Of domestic tame animals, the Japanese possessed from 
 time immemorial the horse, the ox, the buffalo, the dog, and the cat ; 
 but none of these were ever used as food. The Portuguese intro- 
 duced the sheep and the goat ; but the Japanese, not eating their 
 flesh nor understanding the art of working up their wool or hair, 
 took no pains to multiply them. The Chinese introduced the hog ; 
 but the eating of that animal was confined to them and to other 
 foreigners. The deer, the hare and the wild boar, Were eaten by 
 some sects, and some wild birds by the poorer classes. The fox 
 was hunted for its skin, the hair of which was employed for the 
 pencils used in painting and writing. The animal itself, owing to 
 its roguery, was believed to be the residence of particularly wicked 
 souls — an idea confirmed by many strange stories in common circu- 
 lation. The tortoise and the crane were regarded in some sort as 
 sacred animals, never to be killed nor injured. Whales of a small 
 species were taken, then as now, near the coast, and were used as 
 food, as were many other kinds of fish, the produce of the sea and 
 rivers. Shell-fish and certain sea-weeds were also eaten in largo 
 cfuantities. 
 
 The soil of Japan, being of volcanic origin, was in some places 
 
68 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550. 
 
 very fertile ; but in many parts there were rugged and inaccessible 
 mountains, the sides of which, not admitting the use of the plough 
 were built up in terraces cultivated by hand. Agriculture formed 
 the chief occupation of the inhabitants, and they had carried it to 
 considerable perfection, well understanding the use of composite 
 manures. The chief crops were rice, which was the great article 
 of food ; barley, for the horses and cattle ; wheat, used principally 
 for vermacellis ; and several kinds of peas and beans. They culti- 
 vated, also, a number of seeds, from which oils were expressed ; 
 likewise cotton, hemp, the white mulberry for the feeding of silk- 
 worms (silk being the stuff most in use), and the paper mulberry 
 for the manufacture of paper. To these may be added the camphor- 
 tree, which grew, however, only in the south-western parts of Ximo, 
 the Rhus vernix, which produces the celebrated Japanese varnish, 
 and the tea-plant, spoken of by one of the early Portuguese mission- 
 aries as " a certain herb called Chia, of which they put as much as 
 a walnut shell may contain into a dish of porcelain, and drink it 
 with hot water." From rice they produced by fermentation an 
 intoxicating drink, called saki, which served them in the place of 
 wine, and which was consumed in large quantities. A yeast, or 
 rather vinegar, produced from this liquor, was largely employed in 
 the pickling of vegetables. Their most useful woods were the bam- 
 boo, the fir of several species, and the cedar. 
 
 They understood in perfection the ^arts of weaving silks and 
 of moulding porcelain, and excelled in gilding, engraving, and 
 especially in the use of lacquer or varnish. They also were able 
 to manufacture sword-blades of excellent temper. 
 
 As in other eastern countries, the greater nobles exhibited an 
 extreme magnificence ; but trade and the arts were held in low 
 esteem, and the mass of the people were excessively poor. Their 
 buildings, though they had some few solid structures of stone, were 
 principally light erections of wood, to avoid the effects of frequent 
 earthquakes ; but this and the varnish employed exposed them to 
 conflagrations, which, in the towns, were very frequent and destruc- 
 tive. These towns consisted, for the most part, of very cheap struc- 
 tures (like most of those throughout the East), so that cities were 
 built and destroyed with equal ease and celerity. • * 
 
 Their commerce was limited almost entirely to the interchange of 
 
CUSTOM OF LEGAL SUICIDE. 69 
 
 domestic products, a vast number of vessels, of rather feeble struc- 
 ture, being employed in navigating tlie coasts of the islands, which 
 abounded with deep bays and excellent harbors. 
 
 Of the sciences, whether mathematical, mixed, or purely physical, 
 they knew but little. They had, however, a considerable number 
 of books treating of religion, medicine, and their history and tra- 
 ditions. The young were instructed in eloquence, poetry, and a rude 
 sort of painting and music, and they had a great fondness for- theat- 
 rical representations, in which they decidedly excelled. Their 
 writing, in which they greatly studied brevity, was in columns, as 
 with the Chinese, from the top to the bottom of the page, for which 
 they gave this reason : that writing ought to be a true representa- 
 tion of men's thoughts, and that men naturally stood erect. These 
 columns read from right to left. They employed, besides the Chinese 
 idiographic signs, a syllabic alphabet of their own, though in many 
 works the Chinese characters were freely introduced* 
 
 Jurisprudence, as in most eastern countries, was a very simple 
 affair. The laws were very few. Heads of families exercised great 
 power over their households. Most private disputes were settled by 
 arbitration ; but where this failed, and in all criminal cases, a 
 decision was made on the spot by a magistrate, from whom there 
 was seldom any appeal. The sentences were generally executed at 
 once, and often with very great severity. Whether from their tem- 
 perament, or their belief in the doctrines of transmigration and 
 annihilation, it was observed that the Japanese met death with more 
 courage than was common in Europe. It was, indeed, a point of 
 honor, in many cases, to inflict it on themselves, which they did in 
 a horrid manner, by cutting open their bowels by two gashes in the 
 shape of a cross. The criminal who thus anticipated execution 
 secured thereby the public sympathy and applause, saving his 
 property from confiscation, and his family from death ; and, upon the 
 death of superiors or masters, the same fate was often, as a mark 
 of personal devotion and attachment, self-inflicted ; and sometimes, 
 also, in consequence of a disgrace or affront, to escape or revenge 
 which no other means appeared.! The missionaries especially.noted 
 
 * For an account of the Japanese language, method of writing, literature, 
 &c, see Note A, Appendix. 
 t " All military men, the servants of the Djogoun, and persons holding 
 
70 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550. 
 
 in the Japanese a pride, a self-respect, a haughty magnanimity, a 
 sense of personal honor, very uncommon in the East, but natural 
 characteristics enough of a people who had never been conquered by 
 invaders from abroad ; while the great vicissitudes to which they 
 were exposed — all vassals generally sharing the fate of their su- 
 periors — made them look upon the goods and evils of fortune in a 
 very philosophical spirit. 
 
 Such was the condition in which Japan was found when it first 
 became known to Europe through the letters and relations of Xavier 
 and the other Portuguese missionaries his successors. 
 
 civil offices tinder the government, are bound, when they have committed any 
 crime, to rip themselves up ; but not till they have received an order from 
 the court to that effect ; for, if they were to anticipate this order, their heirs 
 would run the risk of being deprived of their places and property. For this 
 reason all the officers of government are provided, in addition to their usual 
 dress, and that which they put on in the case of fire, with a suit necessary on 
 such occasions, which they carry with them whenever they travel from home. 
 It consists of a white robe and a habit of ceremony, made of hempen cloth, 
 and without armorial bearings. 
 
 " As soon as the order of the court has been communicated to the culprit, 
 he invites his intimate friends for the appointed day, and regales them with 
 saki. After they have drank together some time he takes leave of them, and 
 the order of the court is then read to him once more. The person who per- 
 forms the principal part in this tragic scene then addresses a speech or com- 
 pliment to the company, after which he inclines his head towards the floor, 
 draws his sabre, and cuts himself with it across the belly, penetrating to the 
 bowels. One of his confidential servants, who takes his place behind him, 
 then strikes off his head. Such as wish to display superior courage, after the 
 cross-cut inflict a second longitudinally, and then' a third in the throat. No 
 disgrace attaches to such a death, and the son succeeds" to his father's place. 
 
 " When a person is conscious of having committed some crime, and appre- 
 hensive of being thereby disgraced, he puts an end to his own life, to spare 
 his family the ruinous consequences of judicial proceedings. This practice is 
 so common that scarcely any notice is taken of such an event. The sons of all 
 persons of quality exercise themselves in their youth, for five or six years, 
 with a view that they may perform the operation, in case of need, with 
 gracefulness and dexterity ; and they take as much pains to acquire this 
 accomplishment, as youth among us to become elegant dancers or skilful 
 horsemen : hence the profound contempt of death, which they imbibe in 
 their earliest years. This disregard of death, which they prefer to the slight- 
 est disgrace, extends to the very lowest classes among the Japanese." — 
 Titsingh, Elustrations of Japan, p. 147. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PREACHING OF XAVIER. — PINTO'S THIRD VISIT TO JAPAN. A. D. 1550-fil. 
 
 It is not our purpose to trace minutely the progress and fluctu- 
 ating fortunes of the Jesuit missionaries ; nor, indeed, would it always 
 be easy to extract the exact truth from relations into which the 
 marvellous so largely enters. Xavier's letters throw very little 
 light on the subsequent history of his mission, which mainly depends 
 upon accounts derived from an inquisition into the particulars of 
 the apostle's ministry and miracles in the East, ordered to be made 
 shortly after his death by John III., of Portugal, and which resulted 
 in a large collection of duly attested depositions, containing many 
 marvellous statements, most of them purporting to come from eye- 
 witnesses, from which source the Jesuit historians of the eastern 
 missions and the biographers of the saint have drawn most of their 
 materials. 
 
 If we are to believe them, Xavier was not only always victorious 
 in his disputes with the bonzes ; he went even so far, shortly after 
 his arrival in Japan, as to raise the dead — a miracle which furnished 
 Poussin with a subject for a celebrated picture. Xavier, we are 
 told, had been charged in India with a similar interference with the 
 laws of nature ; it is true he attempted to explain it away, as, 
 perhaps, he would have done this Japanese miracle ; but that denial 
 the historian Maffei thinks, instead of disproving the miracle, only 
 proves the modest humility of Xavier. 
 
 Though at first well received, as we have seen, by the king of 
 Satsuma, and though, in the course of near a year that he remained 
 there, the immediate family and many of the relations of Angiro 
 were persuaded to be baptized, yet the remonstrances of the bonzes, 
 followed by the transfer of the Portuguese trade, for the sake of a 
 
72 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550—1551. 
 
 better harbor, from Cangoxima to Firando* caused the king of 
 Satsuma to issue an edict forbidding his subjects, under pain of 
 death, to renounce the worship of their national gods. In conse- 
 quence of this e^ict, Xavier departed for Fikando, which island, off 
 the west coast of Ximo, having separated from the kingdom of 
 Figen, had become independent under a prince of its own. Angiro 
 was left behind, but soon afterwards was obliged to fly to China, 
 where, as Pinto informs us, he was killed by robbers. 
 
 At Firando, in consequence of the representations of the Portu- 
 guese merchants, Xavier was well received ; but, desirous to see the 
 chief city of Japan, leaving Torres behind, he set out with Fernandez 
 and two Japanese converts on a visit to Miako. 
 
 Proceeding by water, he touched first at Facata, a considerable 
 town on the north-west coast of Ximo, and capital of the kingdom 
 of Chichugen, and then at Amanguchi, at that time a large city, 
 capital of Naugato, the most western kingdom or province of the 
 great island of Nipon, separated at this point from Ximo by a nar- 
 row strait. 
 
 The populace of Amanguchi, ridiculing Xavier's mean appearance 
 as contrasted with his .pretensions, drove him out of the city with 
 curses and stones. Winter had now set in, and the cold was severe. 
 The coast was. infested by pirates, and the interior by robbers, which 
 obliged the saint to travel as servant to some merchants, who, them- 
 selves on horseback, required him, though on foot, and loaded with 
 a heavy box of theirs, to keep up with them at full gallop. This, 
 however, seems a little exaggerated, as Japanese travellers on 
 horseback never exceed a walk ; while the box which Xavier carried 
 is represented by the earlier writers as containing the sacred vessels 
 for the sacrifice of the mass. 
 
 Arriving thus at Miako, in rather sad plight, Xavier found that 
 capital almost ruined by civil wars, and on the eve of becoming the 
 field of a new battle. He could obtain no audience, as he had 
 hoped, either of the Kubo-Sama or of the Xaco, nor any hearing 
 except from the populace, so that«he judged it best to return again 
 to Firando. 
 
 There are two means of working upon the imagination, both of 
 
 * Otherwise written Firato, which would seem to be more correct 
 
PINTO'S THIRD VISIT. 7b 
 
 which are employed by turns alike by the Romish and by the Buddh- 
 ist clergy. One is by showing a contempt not merely for elegances, 
 but even for common comforts and ordinary decencies ; the other, by 
 pomp, show and display. Xavier, on his way to Miako, entered 
 the city of Amanguchi barefoot and meanly clad, and had, as we 
 have stated, been hooted and stoned by the populace. He now re- 
 turned thither again from Firando handsomely clothed, and taking 
 with him certain presents and recommendatory letters from the Por- 
 tuguese viceroy of the Indies and the governor of Malacca, 
 addressed to the Japanese princes, but of which as yet he had made 
 no use. Demanding an audience of the king, he was received with 
 respect, and soon obtained leave to preach, and an unoccupied house 
 of the bonzes to live in. Here, being soon surrounded by crowds, he 
 renewed, say his biographers, the miracle of tongues, not only in 
 preaching fluently in Japanese and in Chinese to the numerous mer- 
 chants of that nation who traded there, but in being able by a sin- 
 gle answer to satisfy a multitude of confused questions which the 
 eager crowd simultaneously put to him. Such was his success that, 
 in less than two months, five hundred persons, most of them of con- 
 sideration, received baptism ; and, though the king soon began to 
 grow less favorable, the converts increased, during less than a year, 
 that he remained there, to three thousand. 
 
 The seed thus planted, Xavier resolved to return to the Indies 
 for a fresh supply of laborers ; and, having heard of the arrival of 
 a Portuguese vessel at Fucheo, in the kingdom of Bungo, leaving 
 dc Torres and Fernandez at Amanguchi, he proceeded to Fucheo 
 for the purpose of embarking. 
 
 Among the merchants in this ship was Fernam Mendez Pinto, 
 now in Japan for the third time, and who gives at some length the 
 occurrences that took place after Xavier's arrival at Fucheo, where 
 he was received with great respect by the Portuguese, of whom 
 more than thirty went out on horseback to meet him. 
 
 The young king, whose name was Civan, v had already obtained, 
 through intercourse with Portuguese merchants, some knowledge of 
 their religion. He invited Xavier to an audience, to which the 
 Portuguese merchants accompanied him with so grand a display as 
 somewhat to shock the modesty of the saint, but which strongly 
 impressed in his favor the people of Bungo, to whom he had been 
 7 
 
74 JAPAN. — A. D. 1550—1551. 
 
 represented by the bonzes as so miserable a vagabond as to disgust 
 the very vermin with which he was covered. The young king 
 received him very graciously ; and he preached and disputed with 
 such success as greatly to alarm the bonzes, who vainly attempted 
 to excite a popular commotion against him as an enchanter, through 
 whose mouth a demon spoke, and a cannibal, who fed on dead bodies 
 which he dug up in the night. 
 
 Finally, after conquering, in a long dispute before the king of 
 Bungo, the ablest and most celebrated champion of the bonzes* and 
 converting several of the order to the faith, Xavier embarked for 
 Goa on the 20th of September, 1651, attended by two of his Jap- 
 anese converts. Of these one died at Groa. The other, named 
 Bernard, proceeded to Europe, and, after a visit to Rome, returned 
 to Portugal, and, having entered the Society of Jesus, closed his 
 life at the Jesuit college of Coimbra, a foundation endowed by John 
 III. for the support of a hundred pupils, to be prepared as mis- 
 sionaries to the East. 
 
 At Amanguchi, after Xavier's departure, the bonzes, enemies of 
 Catholicity, were more successful. An insurrection which they 
 raised so alarmed the king, that he shut himself up in his palace, 
 set it on fire, and, having slain his only son with his own hand, 
 ended by cutting himself open. The missionaries, however, were 
 saved by an unconverted princess, who even induced certain bonzes 
 to shelter them ; and a brother of the king of Bungo having been 
 elected king of Naugato, the Catholics, not one of whom, we are 
 told, had been killed in the insurrection, were soon on a better foot- 
 ing than ever. 
 
 * Pinto gives a long account of this dispute, which has been substantially 
 adopted by Lucina, the Portuguese biographer of Xavier, whose life of the 
 saint was published in 1600, and who, in composing it, had the use of Pinto's 
 yet unpublished manuscript. Tursellini's Latin biography of Xavier was 
 published at Kome and Antwerp, 1596. From these was compiled the French 
 life by Bouhours, which our Dryden translated. Tursellini published also 
 four books of Xavier's epistles, translated into Latin. Eight books of new 
 epistles afterwards appeared. Charlevoix remarks of them "that they are 
 memoirs, of which it is not allowable to question the sincerity, but which 
 furnish very little for history, which was not the writer's object." They are 
 chiefly homilies. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PROGRESS OT THE MISSIONS UNDER FATHERS DE TORRES AND NUGNES BAR* 
 RETO. MENDEZ PINTO A FOURTH TIME IN JAPAN. A. D. 1551-1557. 
 
 The apostle of the Indies returned no more to Japan. He died 
 in December, 1552, at the age of forty-six, on his way to China, at 
 the island of Sancian, a little way from Macao, partly, it would 
 seem, through vexation at having been disappointed, by the jealousy 
 and obstinacy of the governor of Malacca, in a more direct mission 
 to that empire, on which he had set his heart, and for which he had 
 made every arrangement. 
 
 But already, before leaving for China, he had despatched from 
 Malacca three new missionaries to Japan, Balthazar Gago, a priest, 
 and two brothers, Peter d'Alcaceva and Edward de Sylva, who 
 landed at Cangoxima in August, 1552, whence they proceeded to 
 Bungo, where, as well as at Amanguchi, a site had been granted for 
 a residence and a church. Father de Torres, now at the head of 
 the mission, in a sort of general assembly of the faithful, to which 
 the principal converts were admitted, regulated the policy of the 
 infant church. To meet the objection of the bonzes, that the new 
 converts had left their old religions to escape the usual contribu- 
 tions of alms, it was resolved to establish hospitals for the sick and 
 poor, as well pagan as converted, — and the more so as poverty in 
 Japan was regarded as peculiarly despicable, and the poor as con- 
 temned by the gods. To suit the taste of the Japanese for specta- 
 cles, an impressive burial service was agreed upon. Great atten- 
 tion, according to the policy of the Catholic church, and especially 
 of the Jesuits, was bestowed on the education of the young. Not 
 to be outdone by the bonzes, the missionaries practised great auster- 
 ities ; regular whipping of themselves in church by all the converta 
 made a stated part of their religious exercises ; but what most con- 
 
T6 JAPAN.— A. D. 1551—1557. 
 
 tributed to the spread of the new faith was, so we are to.d, the ex. 
 ceeding zeal, self-denial, and disinterestedness of the new converts, 
 including among the number several bonzes of the old religious, 
 some of whom were made Jesuits, and even ordained priests, and 
 who soon gave examples of sublime piety, which even the mission- 
 aries themselves found it difficult to imitate. 
 
 Meanwhile, Peter d'Alcaceva, one of the newly-arrived Jesuits, 
 having been sent back to Goa for further aid, on his way to that 
 capital, found at Malacca the body of Xavier, preserved in quick- 
 lime, and also on its way to Goa, whither he attended it. At Goa 
 he encountered Fernam Mendez Pinto, who, having amassed great 
 wealth in the Indies, was about to return to Portugal. Preliminary 
 to this voyage Pinto made a general confession to Father Nugnes 
 Barreto, the vice-provincial of the Jesuits ; after which, falling upon 
 the subject of Xavier, whose dead body lying at Goa was reported 
 to work numerous miracles, he related to his confessor many won- 
 derful stories of the prodigies which he himself had witnessed while 
 with Xavier at Bungo. Passing thence to the zeal and merits of 
 the Japanese converts, he strongly urged Nugnes to proceed thither 
 to take Xavier's place, even offering himself to go as his companion, 
 and to devote the whole of his fortune (except two thousand crowns 
 to be sent to some poor relations in Portugal), partly to the found- 
 ing of a seminary at Amanguchi, whence the faith might be diffused 
 through the whole of Japan, and partly in purchasing magnificent 
 presents for the princes of the country, which he thought would be 
 a good means of securing their favor for the new religion. 
 
 Pinto was accordingly appointed ambassador from the Portuguese 
 viceroy to the king of Bungo, and Nugnes sailed for Malacca in his 
 company, taking with him Father Gaspard Vilela, four brothers, 
 not yet priests, and five young orphans from the Seminary of the 
 Holy Faith, to act as catechists. Before setting out, Nugnes and 
 his brother Jesuits renewed their vows, according to a rule of the 
 order, which required such a renewal once every six months. Pinto 
 was present at this ceremony, and his excitable temperament was 
 so wrought upon by it, that, seized with a sudden impulse, he 
 insisted upon himself repeating the vows, with an additional one to 
 consecrate his person and his goods to the Japanese mission. As 
 he was the viceroy's ambassador, it was resolved that he should not 
 
NUGNES BARRETO. 77 
 
 adopt the Jesuit habit till after he had fulfilled his mission — a 
 delay which proved a lucky thing for Pinto, whose zeal speedily 
 began to evaporate. He served, indeed, for some time in the. hos- 
 pitals of Malacca, where they arrived in June, 1551, and where, 
 ny the sickness of Nugnes and other accidents, they were detained 
 upwards of a year ; and, according to the letters of Nugnes, he 
 gave great edification, the people admiring to see so rich a man, 
 and one lately so fond of display and good living, clothed in rags 
 and begging alms from door to door, having given up all his wealth 
 that he might the better obey the Lord. 
 
 Sailing from Malacca, Nugnes and his company, after perils from 
 pirates, were driven by storms first to Sanchian, and then to Macao, 
 whence, in the spring of 1556, Nugnes proceeded to Canton, where 
 he made many unavailing efforts for the introduction of Catholicism 
 into China. Meanwhile, he received letters from Goa, urging 
 his return, enclosing one from Loyola himself, disapproving of such 
 long voyages by the vice-provincials of the order ; but he was still 
 induced to proceed to Japan by a pressing letter from the prince of 
 Firando, who hoped by his means to attract the Portuguese trade 
 from Bungo to that port. He sailed accordingly for Firando, but 
 was compelled by stress of weather to find a harbor in Bungo. 
 
 Meanwhile, the parts of Japan occupied by the missionaries had 
 been the seats of serious commotions. The king of Bungo had 
 indeed confirmed his power by suppressing an insurrection ; but his 
 brother, the king of Naugato, had been driven from his throne and 
 defeated and slain by Marindono, a relative of the late king ; 
 and during this civil war, the city of Amanguchi had been sacked 
 and burnt, and the missionaries obliged to fly for their lives to 
 Bungo. There, too, a new insurrection had been attempted, but 
 again without success; though the king still kept himself shut up 
 in a fortress at a distance from his capital. He returned, however, 
 to receive Nugnes, which he did very graciously, but* resisted, on 
 grounds of expediency, all his exhortations to make an open profes- 
 sion of Catholicism. Thus disappointed, Nugnes, after sending 
 Gago to establish himself at Firando, thought it best to return to 
 Goa. 
 
 On arriving in Japan, the zeal of Pinto had speedily declined, 
 and he had begun to sigh for his liberty. Perhaps he was alarmed 
 
78 JA.PAN. — A. D. 1551—1557. 
 
 at the appearance of Cosme de Torres, who, from being plump 
 and portly, had, under the thin diet of the country, and the labors 
 of the mission, grown to be exceedingly lean and haggard. At 
 all events, it was found impossible to revive his fervor, and, as the 
 Jesuits wanted no unwilling members, it was decided to release him 
 from his vows. He returned with Nugnes to Groa, whence, not long 
 after, he sailed for Lisbon. In his book he relates his last visit to 
 Japan, but with no mention of his having joined the Jesuits, — of 
 which our knowledge is drawn from the published letters of the 
 missionaries, including one dated in 1554, and written by Pinto 
 himself, from the college at Malacca, addressed to the scholars of 
 the college of Coimbra, and giving a sketch of his travels in the 
 East. 
 
 Having arrived at Lisbon, Sept. 22, 1558, he delivered to the 
 queen regent a commendatory letter from the viceroy of Goa, and 
 had the honor to explain to her what his long .experience suggested 
 as of most utility for the affairs of Portugal in the East, not forget- 
 ting also some private application for himself. The queen referred 
 him to the minister, who gave him high hopes; but at the end 
 of four or five years of tedious solicitation, which became more in- 
 supportable than all his past fatigues, he concluded to content him- 
 self with the little fortune which he had brought from India, and 
 for which he was indebted to nobody but himself. Yet he piously 
 and loyally concludes that if he had been no better rewarded for 
 twenty-one years' services, during which he had been thirteen times 
 a slave, and seventeen times sold, it could only be attributed to the 
 divine justice, which disposes of all things for the best, and rather 
 to his own sins than to any want of royal discernment. He died 
 about 1580, leaving his narrative behind him, which was not printed 
 till 1614, and which was written, as he says at the beginning of it, 
 in his old age, that he might leave it a memorial and heritage to 
 his children to excite their confidence in the aid of Heaven by the 
 example of his own sufferings and deliverances.* 
 
 * For some further remarks on Pinto and his jook, see Appendix, note D. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LOUIS. ALMEIDA. THE MISSIONARIES ESTABLISH THEMSELVES AT MIAKO. ■— 
 
 LOUIS FROEZ. PRINCES CONVERTED IN XIMO. RISE OF NOBUNANGA. 
 
 PROSPERITY OF THE MISSIONS. NOBLE AND PRINCELY CONVERTS. — 
 
 NAGASAKI BUILT. NOBUNANGA MAKES HIMSELF EMPEROR. A. D. 
 
 1557—1577. 
 
 The loss of Pinto and Nugnes, and even that of Father Gago, 
 who, three or four years later, after a very zealous career as a mis- 
 sionary, grew weary of the work, and obtained permission to return 
 to Goa, was more than made up for by the accession of William 
 and Buys Pereyra, two of the catechists brought by Nugnes, and 
 whom, before his departure, he admitted into the order, and espec- 
 ially by that of Louis Almeida, who had arrived in Japan as sur- 
 geon to a trading vessel, and who, after amassing a large fortune, 
 gave it all to pious uses — of which a hospital for abandoned infants 
 was one — and, joining the Jesuits, soon became distinguished for 
 his zeal and assiduity as a missionary. 
 
 The extension which, in the fluctuating condition of affairs, shortly 
 afterwards took place of the dominions of the king of Bungo over 
 the greater part of the island of Ximo, was very favorable to the 
 new religion. The prince of Firando was obliged to pay him trib- 
 ute, and, notwithstanding the double-faced policy of that prince, the 
 new doctrine continued to spread in his territories, where some of 
 the members of the ruling family became converts. A new church 
 was planted at Facata, and the old original one at Cangoxima 
 was reestablished. Presently the new faith gained a footing also 
 in the kingdoms of Arima and Gotto, which, as well as Firando, 
 had been dissevered from the ancient province of Figen. The lord 
 of Ximabara (afterwards famous as the last stronghold of the Cath- 
 olics) invited the missionaries to his city. The king of Arima was 
 
SO JAPAN. — A. D. 1557—1577. 
 
 also very friendly ; he gave the missionaries an establishment, first 
 at Vocoxiwa, and, after that city had been burned by the bonzes, at 
 a port of his called Cochinotzu, on the southern coast of the south- 
 western peninsula of Ximo. The prince of Omura, a dependency 
 of Arima, and the prince of the island of Tacuxima, the same at 
 which Pinto had first landed, then a dependency of Firando, were 
 both among the converts, and exceedingly zealous to induce their 
 subjects to follow their example ; and, notwithstanding the hostil- 
 ity of the bonzes, the frequent wars between the princes, and 
 repeated internal commotions, by which the missionaries were often 
 in danger, the new religion continued to spread in all parts of Ximo, 
 and in fact to be carried by native converts to many parts of Nipon 
 which no missionary had yet reached. Meanwhile, new establish- 
 ments also had been gained on the island of Nipon, in addition to 
 that at Amanguchi, at its western extremity. The fame of the mis- 
 sionaries had induced an old Tundi, or superior of a Buddhist mon- 
 astery near Miako, to send to Amanguchi to ask information about 
 the new religion. Father Vilela was despatched, in 1659, for his 
 instruction, and though the Tundi died before the arrival of the 
 missionary, his successor and many of the bonzes listened with 
 respect to the words of Vilela. As none, however, were willing 
 to receive baptism, he departed for Miako, where he found means 
 to approach Josi Tir, the Kubo-Sama, and to obtain from him 
 permission to preach. Having secured the favor of Mioxindono, 
 the emperor's principal minister, and presently that of Daxandono, 
 the chief judge, he converted many bonzes and nobles, and built up 
 a large and flourishing church. 
 
 An attack upon the emperor by Morindono, king of Naugato, 
 who forced the city of Miako, and set it on fire, detained Vilela 
 for a while in the neighboring town of Sakai, the most . commercial 
 place in Japan, which seems, at that time, to have been a free city, 
 as it were, with an independent government of its own ; and there 
 also a church was planted. But the emperor soon reestablish d his 
 affairs ; and although, from the hostility of Morindono, the church 
 at Amanguchi was very much depressed, everything went on well 
 at Miako, where Vilela was joined, in 1565, by Louis Almeida, and 
 by a young missionary, Louis Froez, lately arrived from Malacca. 
 Of their journey from Cochinotzu to Miako, we have a detailed 
 
NOBUNANGA. 8i 
 
 account in a long and very interesting letter of Almeida's. Hia 
 visit to Miako was only temporary. Froez remained there, and 
 from him we have a long series of letters, historical and descrip- 
 tive, as well as religious, which, for a period of thirty years follow 
 "ing, throw great light on the history and internal condition of 
 Japan. 
 
 At this time the entire empire, since and at present so stable, 
 was the scene of constant revolutions. Very shortly after Froez's 
 arrival Mioxindono and Daxandono conspired against their patron, 
 dethroned him, and drove him to cut himself open,- as did great 
 numbers of his relatives and partisans. These nobles, hitherto 
 favorable to the missionaries, now published an edict against them, 
 probably to secure the favor of the bonzes ; and Vilela and Froez 
 were thus again driven to take refuge at Sakai, where they had 
 a few converts. But the believers at Miako stood firm, and a new 
 revolution soon occurred, headed by a noble called Vatondono, and 
 by Nobunanga, king of Voabi, — which province adjoined the 
 emperor's special territory on the east, — a prince whose military 
 prowess had already made him from a petty noble the master of 
 eighteen provinces in the eastern part of Nipon. 
 
 In 1566 Yatondono and Nobunanga proclaimed as emperor a 
 brother of the late one — a bonze who had escaped from the rebels. 
 Miako was regained, and the new emperor established there a. d. 
 1667. All real authority remained, however, with Nobunanga, 
 who showed himself very hostile to the Buddhist bonzes, they hav- 
 ing generally taken the side of the late rebels. He even destroyed 
 many of their temples, using the idols which they contained as 
 materials for a new palace. He easily granted to Yatondono, who 
 was himself a sort of half convert, the reestablishment of the mis- 
 sionaries at Miako, which was soon confirmed by an imperial edict, 
 issued in 1568 ; and, in spite of an attempt at interference on the 
 part of the Dairi, the new religion, under the protection of Yaton- 
 dono, who was appointed governor of Miako, soon reached a very 
 flourishing condition. 
 
 To this prosperity at Miako a strong contrast was, however, pre- 
 sented by the state of things at Amanguchi, whence the missiona- 
 ries were expelled by the king of Naugato, though the church thera 
 was still kept alive by the zeal and constancy of some of the con* 
 
62 JAPAN. — A. D. 1557—1577. 
 
 verts. In the island of Ximo the new religion continued in 
 spread. Indeed, the baptized prince of Oinura, not content with 
 hacking idols to pieces, and refusing to join in the old national fes- 
 tivals, wished also to prohibit all the old ceremonies, and to compel 
 his subjects to adopt the new ones, — an excess of zeal which, by 
 displaying the intolerant spirit of the new sect, fostered an union of 
 all the old ones against it, such as at last occasioned its destruction. 
 
 This prince had allowed certain Portuguese merchants to estab- 
 lish themselves at Nagasaki,* then a mere fishing village, but hav- 
 ing a capacious harbor, the port of Japan nearest to China and the 
 Indies, at the head of a deep bay, opening to the west. Presently 
 he built a church there, and, a. d. 1568, invited the missionaries 
 to make it their head-quarters, with a promise that no religion 
 but theirs should be allowed. This invitation was accepted; 
 many converts flocked thither, and Nagasaki soon became a con- 
 siderable city. Fathers de Torres and Vilela both died in 1570,t 
 worn out with years and labors, the latter being succeeded as head 
 of the mission by Father Cabral, sent out from Goa as vice-pro- 
 vincial of the order, and accompanied by Father Gnecchi, who soon 
 became an efficient laborer. 
 
 Meanwhile, an insurrection in the imperial provinces, on the part 
 of the old rebels, which it cost the life of Vatondono to suppress, so 
 provoked Nobunanga that he wreaked his vengeance anew upon 
 the bonzes (who had again aided the insurgents), by destroying a 
 great number of their monasteries on the famous mountain of 
 Jesan, and putting the inmates to death. This occurrence took 
 place a. d. 1571, as the missionaries remarked, on the day of St. 
 Michael, whom Xavier had named the patron saint of Japan. 
 Cabral, the vice-provincial, having made a visit to Miako, was very 
 graciously received by Nobunanga. Shortly after the titular Kubo- 
 
 * This name is frequently written Nangaski, and such, according to 
 Kampfer, is the pronunciation. 
 
 t Of Father de Torres we have four letters rendered into Latin, and of 
 Vilela, in the same collections, seven, giving, among other things, a pretty 
 full account of his visit to and residence at Miako. For the description, 
 however, of that capital, and the road to it, I prefer to rely on lay travellers, 
 of whose observations, during a series of visits extending through more than 
 two centuries, a full abstract will be found in subsequent chapters. 
 
SPREAD OF CATHOLICISM. 83 
 
 3ama made a vain attempt to regain the exercise of authority. 
 The defeated prince was still left in possession of his title, but No- 
 bunanga was thenceforth regarded as, in fact, himself the emperor. 
 This was in li)73. In 1576 the church received new and im- 
 portant accessions in Ximo. The king of Bungo, though from the 
 beginning favorable to the missionaries, had, from reasons of 
 policy, and through the influence of his wife, who was very hostile 
 to the new religion, declined baptism ; none of the courtiers had sub- 
 mitted to it, and the converts in that kingdom had consisted as yet 
 of an inferior class. But the second son of the king having taken 
 the resolution to be baptized, in spite of the violent opposition of 
 the queen, his mother, — who had great influence over Joeimon, the 
 king's eldest son, associated, according to a usual Japanese custom, 
 in the government, — his example was followed by many persons 
 of rank in the kingdom of Bungo, and even by the neighboring 
 king of Arima, who died, however, shortly after, leaving his king- 
 dom to an unbelieving successor.* 
 
 * The following passage, from Titsingh's Memoirs of the Djogouns, may 
 serve to shed some light upon the civil war raging in Japan when first 
 visited by the Portuguese, and which continued down to the time of Nobu- 
 nanga. "Faka-ousi was of the family of Yos-ye, who was descended from 
 Liewa-tenwo, the 56th Dairi. He divided the supreme power between his 
 two sons, Yosi-nori and Moto-ousi, giving to each the government of thirty- 
 three provinces. [According to Kampfer, Yosi-nori ascended the throne of the 
 Kubo-Sama a. d. 1431, but he represents him as the son and successor of 
 Josimitz. There is no Faka-ousi in Kampfer's list, unless it be the same 
 whom he calls Taka-udsi, and whom he makes the grandfather of Josimitz.] 
 The latter, who ruled over the eastern part, was styled Kama-koura-no- 
 Djogoun, and kept his court at Kama-koura, in the province of Sagami. 
 Yosi-nori, to whom were allotted the western provinces, resided at Miako, 
 with the title of Tchoko-no Djogoun. 
 
 " Faka-ousi, in dividing the empire between his two sons, was influenced 
 by the expectation that, in case either of them should be attacked, his brother 
 would afford him assistance. This partition, on the contrary, only served to 
 arm them one against the other ; the country was involved in continual war, 
 and the princes, though brothers, were engaged in frequent hostilities, which 
 terminated only with the destruction of the branch of Miako." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FATHER VALIGNANI. — STATE OP THE MISSIONS. CONVERSION AND BAPTISM 
 
 OP THE KING OF BUNGO. — GROWTH OF NAGASAKI. EMBASSY TO THE 
 
 POPE. DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THIS EMBASSY. A. D. 1577—1586. 
 
 Such was the state of things on the arrival, at the beginning 
 of 1577, of Father Alexander Valignani, visitor-general of the 
 Jesuit establishments in the East, and who in that capacity came to 
 inspect the missions of Japan. He found there, in addition to a 
 large number of native catechists, fifty-nine professed Jesuits 
 (including twelve who had arrived but a short time before), 
 of whom twenty-six were native Japanese; but, as only twenty- 
 three of the whole number were ordained priests, it was found very 
 difficult to meet the demand for ministers qualified to baptize and 
 to administer the other sacraments. Hence the visitor was the 
 more convinced of the necessity of establishing a noviciate of the 
 order (a project already started by Father Cabral, the vice-provin- 
 cial), and seminaries for the education of the children of the con- 
 verts designed for the priesthood, especially those of superior rank ; 
 and in his letters to the general of the order and to the Pope, 
 he recommended the appointment of a bishop, so that ordination 
 might be had without the necessity of going to Malacca. He also 
 settled, at a general assembly of the missionaries, who met him at- 
 Cochinotzu, many points of discipline, and especially a difficult and 
 much disputed question as to the wearing of silk garments, which, 
 as being the stuff in use by all persons of consideration in Japan, 
 some of the Jesuits wished to wear. The ground taken was that" 
 it would only be a new application of the policy, which had been 
 agreed upon, of .conforming as far as innocently might be to the 
 customs of the country. This argument, however, had not satis- 
 fied Father Cabral ; he had prohibited the wearing of silk, which 
 
CONVERSION OF THE KINO OF BUNGO. 85 
 
 the rule of the order did not allow ; and that decision was now 
 confirmed -by the visitor. 
 
 There weie, however, other points upon which the vice-provin- 
 cial and the visitor did not so well agree. Of Cabral, Charlevoix 
 draws the following character — one for which many originals might 
 be found : " He was a holy professor, a great missionary, a vigilant 
 and amiable superior ; but he was one of those excellent persons 
 who imagine themselves more clear-headed than other men, and 
 who, in consequence, ask counsel of nobody but themselves ; or 
 rather, who believe themselves inspired, when they have once prayed 
 to be so, regarding as decrees of Heaven, expressed by their mouth, 
 all the resolutions which they have taken at the foot of the cross, 
 where the last thing to be laid down is one's own judgment." Ca- 
 bral had taken up the idea that persons of such vigorous under- 
 standing as the Japanese must be duly held in check ; and the whole 
 twenty-six of them received, up to this time, into the company, and 
 almost all of whom aspired to the priesthood, he strictly limited 
 to such' studies as would suffice to qualify them for the subordinate 
 parts of divine service. This policy Valignani did not approve ; 
 but when he sought to alter it, he encountered such opposition from 
 Father Cabral, as to be obliged to send him off to Groa, appointing 
 Father G-aspard Cuello in his place. 
 
 Shortly after the arrival of Yalignani, the church gained a new 
 and distinguished accession in Civan, king of Bungo, who, hav- 
 ing repudiated his old pagan wife, to whom the Catholics gave the 
 name of Jezebel, married a new one, and was baptized with all his 
 household, taking the name of Francis, according to the custom of 
 the missionaries in giving European names to their converts. There 
 were even strong hopes of gaining over his eldest son and colleague, 
 Joscimon, when a war broke out with the king of Satsuma, for the 
 possession of the intervening kingdom of Fiunga, which resulted in 
 the loss of all Civaii's conquests, and his reduction to his original 
 province of Bungo, which also he was in danger of losing, — a 
 change by no means favorable to the missionaries. Cochinotzu was 
 ruined in this war ; and the spectacle of the vicissitudes to which 
 everything in Japan was exposed induced Valignani to urge upon 
 the Portuguese merchants and residents to fortify Nagasaki. This 
 Was done in 1579, and that port became thenceforward almost the 
 
86 JAPAN. — A. D. 1577—1586. 
 
 sole one resorted to by the Portuguese. The converted king of 
 Giotto having died, the guardian of his infant son showed himself 
 hostile to the missionaries ; but this circumstance was an ad- 
 vantage to Nagasaki, which received many fugitives from these 
 islands. 
 
 The new king of Arima being brought, by the labors of the vis- 
 itor, to a better disposition, was baptized, and became one of the 
 most zealous of the converts. Both the emperor Nobinanga and 
 his three sons still continued very well disposed to the missionaries, 
 allowing Father Gnecchi, who was a favorite with him, to establish 
 a house, a church and a seminary, at Anzuqiama, his local capital, 
 which he had greatly beautified, and between which and Miako he 
 had caused a highway to be built, at great expense and with im- 
 mense labor. His evident design to make his authority absolute, 
 had indeed led to a league against him, which, however, proved of 
 no avail, this attempt at resistance resulting in the subjection of all 
 the kings of the western half of Nipon, except Morindono, of Nau- 
 gato. The good service which the missionaries rendered, in per- 
 suading the Christian princes, and the Christian vassals of the 
 unconverted ones, to submit to the emperor, as their superior lord, 
 caused Yalignani to be very graciously received, both at Miako and 
 also at Anzuqiama. 
 
 On the visitor's return to Ximo, the converted kings of Bungo 
 and Arima, and the prince of Omura, determined to send ambassa- 
 dors to be the bearers of their submission to the Pope. For this 
 purpose two young nobles were selected, scarcely sixteen years of 
 age r one, prince of Fiunga, the son of a niece of the king of Bungo, 
 the other, prince of Arima, cousin of the king of Arima, and neph- 
 ew of the prince of Omura. They were attended by two counsellors 
 somewhat older than themselves, by Father Diego de Mesquita, as 
 their preceptor and interpreter, and by a Japanese Jesuit, named 
 George Loyola, and, in company with Father Valignani, they sailed 
 from Nagasaki February 20th, 1582, in a Portuguese ship bound 
 for Macao, now the head-quarters of the Portuguese trade to Japan. 
 They arrived at Macao after a very stormy and dangerous passage 
 of seventeen days ; but the season of sailing for Malacca being 
 Dast, they had to wait there six months. When at length they did 
 sail, they encountered very violent storms ; but at last, after twenty- 
 
JAPANESE EMBASSY TO THE POPE. 87 
 
 nine days' passage (January 27th, 1583) they reached Malacca, 
 passing, as they entered the harbor, the wreck of another richly- 
 laden Portuguese vessel, which had sailed from Macao in their 
 company. After resting at Malacca eight days, they embarked for 
 Goa, which third voyage proved not less trying than the two others. 
 Delayed by calms, they ran short of provisions and water, and by 
 the ignorance of the pilot were near being run ashore on the island 
 of Ceylon. They disembarked at length at Travancore, at the 
 south-eastern extremity of the peninsula of India, whence they pro- 
 ceeded by land to the neighboring port of Cochin. Here, owing to 
 the unfavorable monsoon, they had to wait six months before they 
 could sail for Goa, at which capital of Portuguese India they ar- 
 rived in September. The viceroy of the Indies received them with 
 great hospitality, and furnished them with a good ship, in which 
 they had a favorable passage round the Cape of Good Hope, arriv- 
 ing at .Lisbon August 10th, 1584. 
 
 Four years before, Portugal had passed under the rule of Philip 
 II., of Spain, who had thus united on his single head the crowns of 
 both the East and the West Indies ; and to him these ambassadors 
 were charged with a friendly message. The viceroy of Portugal 
 received them at Lisbon with every attention. At Madrid they 
 were received by Philip II. himself with the greatest marks of 
 distinction. Having traversed Spain, they embarked at Alicante, 
 but were driven by a storm into the island of Majorca, thereby 
 escaping an Algerine fleet and a Turkish squadron, both of which 
 were cruising in that neighborhood. Sailing thence they landed at 
 Leghorn, where Pierro de Medici, brother of the grand duke of 
 Tuscany, was waiting to attend them. They spent the carnival at 
 Pisa, and thence by Florence proceeded towards Rome. 
 
 Aquiviva, general of the Jesuits (the fourth successor of Loyola), 
 was very pressing with the Pope for a reception without display ; 
 but Gregory XIII. (the same to whom we owe the reform of the 
 calendar) had determined in consistory that the honor of the church 
 and of the holy see required a different course. The ambassadors 
 were met at Viterbo by the Pope's light horse, and were escorted 
 into the city by a long cavalcade of Roman nobles. The whole of 
 the corso up to Jesus, the church and house of the Jesuits, where 
 the ambassadors were to lodge, was crowded with neople, who 
 
JAPAN. — A. D. 1577—15? 
 
 greeted their arrival with deafening shouts. As they alighted from 
 their carriage, they were received by Father Aquiviva, attended 
 by all the Jesuits then at Rome, who conducted them to the church, 
 where Te Deurn was chanted. 
 
 The next day a magnificent procession was formed to escort them 
 to the Vatican. It was headed by the light horse, followed by the 
 Pope's Swiss guard, the officers of the cardinals, the carriages of the 
 ambassadors of Spain, France, Venice, and the Roman princes, the 
 whole Roman nobility on horseback, the pages and officers of the 
 ambassadors, with trumpets and cymbals, the chamberlains of the 
 Pope, and the officers of the palace, all in red robes. Then followed 
 the Japanese on horseback, in their national dress, # three silken 
 gowns of a light fabric, one over the other, of a white ground, splen- 
 didly embroidered with fruits, leaves and birds. In their girdles 
 they wore the two swords, symbols of Japanese gentility. Their 
 heads, shaven, except the hair round the ears and neck, which was 
 gathered into a cue bent upwards, had no covering. Their features 
 were hardly less divergent from the European standard than their 
 dress, yet their whole expression, air and manner, modest and ami- 
 able, but with a conscious sentiment of nobility, was such as im- 
 pressed the bystanders very favorably. The prince of Fiunga came 
 first, between two archbishops. The prince of Arima followed, 
 between two bishops. Of their counsellors, one was kept away by 
 sickness, the other followed between two nobles, and after him 
 Father de Mesquita, the interpreter, also on horseback. A great 
 number of richly-dressed courtiers closed the procession. The 
 crowds, which filled the streets and the windows, looked on in 
 almost breathless silence. As the ambassadors crossed the bridge 
 of St. Angelo, all the cannon of the castle were fired, to which 
 those of the Vatican responded, at which signal all the bands 
 struck up, and continued to play till the hall of audience was 
 reached. 
 
 The ambassadors approached the foot of the papal throne, each 
 with the letter of his prince in his hand. Prostrating themselves 
 at the Pope's feet, they declared in Japanese, in a voice loud and 
 distinct, that they had come from the extremities of the earth to 
 
 * For a particular description of the dress of the Japanese, see chap, xli 
 
LETTER OF THE KING OF BUNGO. 8§> 
 
 acknowledge in the person of the Pope the vicar of Jesus Christ 
 and to render obedience to him in the name of the princes of whom 
 the j were the envoys, and also for themselves. The Father de 
 Mesquita expressed in Latin what they had said ; but the appear- 
 ance of the young men themselves, who had essayed so many dangers 
 and fatigues to come to pay their homage to the holy see, was more 
 expressive, than any words; and it drew tears and sobs from the 
 greater part of the audience. The Pope himself, greatly agitated, 
 hastened to raise them up, kissed their foreheads, and embraced 
 them many times, dropping tears upon them. They were then con- 
 ducted to an alcove, while the secretary of the consistory read the 
 letters from the Japanese princes, which Father de Mesquita had 
 translated into Italian, and of which the following may serve as a 
 specimen : 
 
 " LETTER OF THE KING OF BPNGO, 
 
 " To him who ought to be adored, and who holds the place of the king of 
 heaven, the great and most holy Pope. 
 
 " Full of confidence in the grace of the supreme and almighty God, I 
 write, with all possible submission, to your Holiness. The Lord, who governs 
 heaven and earth, who holds under his empire the sun and all the celestial 
 host, has made his light to shine upon one who was plunged in ignorance and 
 buried in deep darkness. It is more than thirty years since this sovereign 
 Master of nature, displaying all the treasures of his pity in favor of the 
 inhabitants of these countries, sent thither the fathers of the Company of 
 Jesus, who have sowed the seed of the divine Word in these kingdoms of 
 Japan ; and he has pleased, in his infinite bounty, to cause a part of it to fall 
 into my heart : singular mercy, for which I think myself indebted, most 
 holy Father of all the faithful, as well to the prayers and merits of your 
 Holiness, as to those of many others. If the wars which I have had to sus- 
 tain, my old age and my infirmities, had not prevented me, I should myself 
 have visited the holy places where you dwell, to render in person the obe- 
 dience which I owe you. I would have devotedly kissed the feet of your 
 Holiness, I would have placed them on my head, and would have besought 
 you to make with your sacred hand the august sign of the cross on my heart. 
 Constrained, by the reasons I have mentioned, to deprive myself of a consola- 
 tion so sweet, I did design to send in my place Jerome, son of the king of 
 Fiunga, and my grand-son ; but as he was too far distant from my court, 
 and as the father-visitor could not delay his departure, I have substituted 
 for him Mancio, his cousin and my great nephew. 
 
 " I shall be infinitely obliged if your Holiness, holding upon earth the place 
 of God himself, shall continue to shed your favor upon me, upon all Christiana, 
 
90 JAPAN. — A. D. 1577—1586. 
 
 and especially upon this little portion of the flock committed to your care 
 I have received from the hand of the father-visitor the reliquary with whick 
 your Holiness honored me, and I have placed it on my head with much 
 respect. I have no words in which to express the gratitude with which I am 
 penetrated for a gift so precious. I will add no more, as the father-visitoi 
 and my ambassador will more fully inform your Holiness as to all thai 
 regards my person and my realm. I truly adore you, most holy Father, and I 
 write this to you trembling with respectful fear. The 11th day of January, 
 in the year of our Lord 1582. Francis, King of Bungo, 
 
 prostrate at the foot of your Holiness." 
 
 The reading of this and of the other letters, translated into Italian 
 was followed by a Discourse on Obedience, pronounced, in the name 
 of the princes and the ambassadors, by Father Gaspard Gonzales 
 a model of rhetorical elegance and comprehensive brevity — what- 
 ever may be thought of its ethical or theological doctrines — which 
 some of the long-winded speakers of the present day, both lay and 
 clerical, would do well to imitate. We give, as a specimen, a pas- 
 sage from the beginning : 
 
 '•' Nature has separated Japan from the countries in which we now are, by 
 such an extent of land and sea, that, before the present age, there were very 
 few persons who had any knowledge of it ; and even now there are those who 
 find it difficult to believe the accounts of it which we give. It is certain, 
 nevertheless, most holy Father, that there are several Japanese islands, of a 
 vast extent, and in these islands numerous fine cities, the inhabitants of 
 which have a keen understanding, noble and courageous hearts, and obliging 
 dispositions, politeness of manners, and inclinations disposed towards that 
 which is good. Those who have known them have decidedly preferred them 
 to all the other people of Asia, and it is only their lack of the true religion 
 which prevents them from competing with the nations of Europe. 
 
 " For some years past this religion has been preached to them, under the 
 authority of the holy see, by apostolical missionaries. Its commencements 
 were small, as in the case of the primitive church ; but God having given 
 his blessing to this evangelical seed, it took root in the hearts of the nobles, 
 ind of late, under the pontificate of your Holiness, it has been received by 
 he greatest lords, the princes and kings of Japan. This, most holy Father, 
 mght to console you, for many reasons ; but principally because, laboring aa 
 you do with an indefatigable zeal and vigor to reestablish a religion, shaken 
 and almost destroyed by the new heresies here in Europe, you see it take root 
 and make great progress in the most distant country of the world. 
 
 " Hitherto your Holiness has heard, and with great pleasure, of the abun 
 dant fruits borne by this vine newly planted, with so much labor, at the 
 extremities of the earth. Now you may see, touch, taste them, in this august 
 
DISCOURSE ON OBEDIENCE. 9l 
 
 assembly, and impart of them to all the faithful. What joy ought not all 
 Christians to feel, and especially the Roman people, at seeing the ambassa- 
 dors of such great princes come from the ends of the earth to prostrate 
 themselves at the feet of your Holiness, through a pure motive of religion, — 
 a thing which has never happened in any age ! What satisfaction for them 
 to see the most generous and valiant kings of the East, conquered by the 
 arms of the faith and by the preaching of the gospel, submitting themselves 
 to the empire of Jesus Christ, and, as they cannot, from their avocations, 
 come in person to take the oath of obedience and fidelity to the holy see, 
 acquitting themselves of this duty by ambassadors so nearly related to them, 
 and whom they so tenderly love ! " 
 
 In the following passage the orator alludes more at length to the 
 revolt in Europe against the authority of the Pope, which Philip 
 II., no less than the Pope, was at this moment vigorously laboring 
 to put down, by the recent introduction of the Jesuits into the 
 Netherlands, where the Protestant rebels had been suppressed, 
 by war against Holland, by aiding the French leaguers, by coun- 
 tenancing the retrograde movement then in rapid progress in Ger- 
 many, and by preparing to carry out against Elizabeth of England 
 the sentence of deposition which the Pope had fulminated against 
 her. 
 
 "0, immortal God ! What a stroke of thine arm ! What an effect of 
 thy grace ! In places so distant from the holy see, where the name of Jesus 
 had never been heard, nor his gospel "ever preached, as soon as the true 
 faith shed there the first rays of the truth, men of temperaments quite dif- 
 ferent from ours, kings illustrious by their nobility, redoubtable for their 
 power, happy in the abundance of their possessions, conquerors and warriors 
 signalized by their victories, acknowledge the greatness and dignity of the 
 Roman church, and hold it a great honor to kiss the feet of the church's 
 head by the lips of persons infinitely dear to them ; all this happens while 
 we see men at our very gates blind and impious enough to wish to cut off 
 with a parricidal hand the head of the mystic body of Jesus Christ, and to 
 call in doubt, to their own ruin, the authority of the holy see, established by 
 Jesus Christ himself, confirmed by the course of so many ages, defended by 
 the writings of so many holy doctors, recognized and approved by so many 
 councils ! 
 
 " But it is not proper that I should give way to grief, or trouble the joys 
 of this day by the recollection of our miseries ! ' 
 
 To this address, on behalf of the Japanese princes and theii 
 ambassadors, Monseigneur Antony Bocapaduli replied in Latin, in 
 the Pope's name, as follows : 
 
92 JAPAN. — A. D. 1577—1586. 
 
 <l His holiness commands me, most noble lords, to say to you that Don» 
 Francis, king of Bungo, Dom Protais, king of Arima, and Dom Barthelemi, 
 prince of Omura, have acted like wise and religious princes in sending you 
 from the extremities of Asia to acknowledge the power with which God'a 
 bounty hath clothed him on the earth, since there is but one faith, one church 
 universal, and but a single chief and supreme pastor, whose authority ex- 
 tends to all parts of the earth where there are Christians, which pastor and 
 only head is the bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter. He is charmed 
 to see that they believe firmly and profess aloud this truth, with all the other 
 articles that compose the Catholic faith. . He gives ceaseless thanks to the 
 divine goodness which has wrought these marvels ; and this joy appears to 
 him so much the more legitimate, as it has its foundation in the zeal by 
 which he is animated for the glory of the Almighty, and the salvation of 
 souls which the incarnate Word has purchased with his blood. This is why 
 this venerable pontiff and all the sacred college of the cardinals of the Roman 
 church receive, with a truly paternal affection, the protestation which you 
 make to the vicar of Jesus Christ of faith, filial devotion and obedience, on 
 the part of the princes whom you represent. His holiness earnestly desires 
 and prays to God that all the kings and princes of Japan, and all those who 
 rule in other parts of the world, may imitate so good an example, may re- 
 nounce their idols and all their errors, may adore in spirit and in truth 
 the sovereign Lord who has created this universe, and his only son, Jesus 
 Christ, whom he has sent into the world ; since it is in this knowledge and 
 this faith that eternal life consists." 
 
 This reply finished, the ambassadors were conducted around to 
 the foot of the throne, and again kissed the feet of the Pope ; after 
 which the cardinals, drawing near, embraced them, and put to them 
 many questions as to their travels and the rarities of their country : 
 questions to which they replied with so much sense and acuteness 
 as to cause no little admiration. 
 
 At length the Pope rose, exclaiming, Nunc dimittis servum tuum 
 Bomine (which might by a pious Catholic be taken as a proph- 
 ecy of his approaching death). The two chief ambassadors, who 
 were of the blood royal, were directed to lift up the train of his 
 robes, — an honor monopolized, as far as the princes of Europe 
 were concerned, by the ambassador of the emperor. The holy father 
 having been thus conducted to his apartment, the cardinal St. Six- 
 tus, his nephew, the cardinal Gruastavillani and the duke of Sora, 
 entertained the Japanese at a magnificent dinner. A private audi- 
 ence followed, in which the ambassadors delivered the presents they 
 had brought, and the Pope announced that he had endowed tha 
 
LETTERS FROM THE POPE. 98 
 
 proposed new seminary at Fucheo with an annual dotation of four 
 thousand Roman crowns. 
 
 Gregory XIII. died a few days after ; # but his successor, Sixtus 
 V., who, as cardinal of Monte Alto, had taken greatly to the 
 Japanese, was not less favorable to them as Pope. They assisted, 
 among the other ambassadors of kings, at his coronation, bearing 
 the. canopy and holding the basin for his Holiness to wash in when 
 he said mass. They had the. same honors when the pontiff was 
 enthroned at Saint John Lateran. The holy father afterwards 
 invited them to visit his country-house, where they were splendidly 
 entertained and regaled on his behalf by his steward and four-and- 
 twenty prelates. 
 
 Finally, on the eve of the Ascension, in the presence of all the 
 Roman nobility, they were dubbed knights of the gilded spurs. 
 The Pope himself girded on their swords, while the spurs of the 
 two princes were buckled on by the' ambassadors of France and 
 Venice, and those of the two others by the Marquis Altemps ; after 
 which the Pope placed about their necks chains of gold, to which 
 his medal was attached, and kissed and embraced them. The next 
 day his Holiness said mass in person, and they communicated from 
 his hand. He dismissed them with briefs, addressed to their princes, 
 of which the following may serve as a sample : 
 
 " BRIEF OF TOPE SIXTUS V. TO THE KING OF ARIMA. 
 
 " Noble prince and our well-beloved son, salvation and apostolical bene- 
 diction. 
 
 " Our well-beloved son Dora Michael, your ambassador to this court, deliv- 
 ered to Pope Gregory XIII., our predecessor, of holy and happy memory, now, 
 as we must presume, in glory, the letters with which your majesty had 
 charged him ; and after these letters had been publicly read, he rendered to 
 that pontiff the obedience clue to the vicar of Jesus Christ, and which all 
 Catholic kings are accustomed to render to him. This was done in presence 
 of all the cardinals of the holy church, then assembled at Rome, of which 
 number we were. A greater concourse of persons of all conditions, and a 
 greater public joy, had never been seen. Shortly after, it having pleased God 
 to charge us, without our having in the least merited it, with the government 
 of his church, we have also received with entirely paternal tenderness the 
 
 * His reception of the Japanese and his reformation of the calendar are 
 both recorded together in his epitaph. 
 
94 JAPAN. — " A. D. 1577—1586. 
 
 6ame duties of obedience which Dom Michael has renewed to us, in the namfc 
 of your majesty ; whereupon we have thought proper to add you to the number 
 of our very dear children, the Catholic kings of the holy church. We have 
 seen, with much joy and satisfaction, the testimonies of your piety and re- 
 ligion ; and, to give you the means of increasing these in your heart, we have 
 sent you, by your before-named ambassador, inclosed in a cross of gold, a 
 piece of the cross to which was nailed Jesus Christ, King of kings and eter- 
 nal Priest, who, by the effusion of his blood, has made us also kings and 
 priests of the living God. We send you, also, a sword and hat, which we 
 have blessed, such as it is the custom of the Roman pontiff to send to all the 
 Catholic kings, and we pray the Lord to be the support of your majesty in 
 all your enterprises. According to the usage in the courts of the kings of 
 Europe, the sword and hat should be received at the end of a mass, to which 
 we shall attach a plenary indulgence for all sins for the benefit of all who 
 may assist thereat, and who, after having confessed themselves, shall pray 
 for the tranquillity of the Catholic church, the salvation of the Christian 
 princes, and the extirpation of heresies — provided they have a true confidence 
 in the divine mercy, in the power which has been given to the holy apostles 
 Peter and Paul, and in that with which we are clothed. Given at Rome, at 
 St. Peter's, under the seal of the fisherman," &c. 
 
 From Rome, escorted out of the city with all honors, the ambassa- 
 dors went by way of Loretto, where they paid their devotions, to 
 Venice, and thence to Milan and Genoa, at which latter place 
 they embarked for Barcelona. They declined, as they had been so 
 long, from home, a pressing invitation from Henry III. to visit 
 France, and, after a new audience with Philip II., they hastened to 
 sail from Lisbon on their return voyage, embarking April 13th, 
 1586* 
 
 * The Letters, Briefs, and the Discourse on Obedience, above quoted, may be 
 found at length in Latin, in the very valuable and rich collection, De Rebus Ja- 
 ponicis Indicis and Peruvianis Epistolce Recentiores, edited by John Hay, 
 of Dalgetty, a Scotch Jesuit, and a sharp controversialist, published in 1605 ; 
 in Spanish, in Father Luys de Gusman's Historia de los Missiones, que 
 han hecho los Religioses de la Compania de Jesus, fyc, published in 1601, 
 of which the larger part is devoted to the Japanese mission ; in Italian, in 
 Father Daniel Batoli's Historia dela Compagnia de Gesu ; and in French, in 
 Charlevoix's Histoiredu Japon. An Ltalian history of the mission was printed 
 at Rome, 1585, — the same, I suppose, of which a Latin translation is given 
 in Hay's collection ; and a still rarer and more valuable one at Macao, in 
 1590, of which a further account will be found in a note at the end of th« 
 ne-st chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EVENTS MEANWHILE IN JAPAN. — DOWNFALL OF NOBUNANGA. ACCESSION OF 
 
 FAX1BA, AFTERWARDS KNOWN AS CAMBUCUNDONO, AND, FINALLY, AS TAIKO- 
 SAMA. — EDICT AGAINST THE JESUITS. — RETURN OF THE AMBASSADORS. — 
 A. D. 1582-1588. 
 
 While the ambassadors were on their way to Europe, great 
 changes had taken place in the Japanese islands. A few' months after 
 they had sailed from Nagasaki, Aquichi, a favorite general of No- 
 bunanga's, had marched from Miakotojoin Faxiba, another favorite 
 general, employed in prosecuting the war against Naugato. The stern 
 severity of Nobunanga had rendered him very unpopular, of which 
 Aquichi took advantage to turn about and attack him, left as he 
 was at Miako almost without troops. Nobunanga, thus betrayed 
 and surprised, having no other resource, set fire to his palace, and 
 perished in it, June 15, 1580, with his eldest son. His second son, 
 overwhelmed by this disaster, went mad, and in that condition set 
 fire to his father's patrimonial palace at Anzuquiama, thus kindling 
 a conflagration which consumed almost the entire city, including a 
 splendid temple, which Nobunanga had lately erected there, and in 
 which, suspending all other worship by edict, he had required divine 
 honors to be paid to a stone graven with his arms * and other 
 devices. To the missionaries, who had all along counted upon 
 making a convert of Nobunanga, this step had caused no less horror 
 than surprise ; and they found in it a ready explanation of the sud- 
 den ruin which had overtaken himself and his family, especially as 
 his eldest son had been the first to pay the required worship. 
 
 * The princes and nobles of Japan, and indeed most private individuals, 
 have certain devices embroidered on their gowns, &c, which the Portuguese 
 and the missionaries compared to the armorial bearings of Europe. 
 
96 JAPAN. A. P. 1582—1588. 
 
 Aquichi now aspired to succeed the master he had betrayed and 
 overthrown ; but he was defeated by Ucondono, another general, a 
 nephew of the Yatadono, who had played so conspicuous a part in 
 previous revolutions, and a convert to the Catholic faith, who united 
 with Faxiba to revenge their master's death, the latter marching 
 upon Miako in the name of the late emperor's third son, whom he 
 proclaimed as Kubo-Sama, reserving, however, to himself all real 
 authority ; and thus again was Japan, as during part of Nobunanga's 
 reign, furnished with two " idle kings," — a Dairi and a titular 
 Kubo-Sama, — while the real power was in the hands of a third party. 
 
 Faxiba 's own very humble birth made him the more willing to 
 begin, at first, with ruling in the name of another. Origin- 
 ally he was but a mere private soldier, who, having attracted 
 the attention of' Nobunanga, as well by his wit and drollery as 
 by his courage and sagacity, had been gradually raised by^ him 
 to the highest commands. This founder of the Japanese imperial 
 authority, as it now exists, is described as having been short, but 
 quite fat, and exceedingly strong, with six fingers on each hand, 
 and something frightful in his face, his eyes protruding in a 
 strange manner. It was he who completed what Nobunanga 
 had begun, and who first gave to Japan, at least in modern times, 
 a real and effective emperor, ruling supreme over the whole 
 territory. 
 
 The son of Nobunanga, being restless under the humiliation to 
 which he was reduced, was deprived of his place as Kubo-Sama, and 
 obliged to be satisfied with the island of Sikokf, the smaller of the 
 three larger Japanese islands which his father had assigned him as an 
 appanage, while Faxiba declared himself the guardian of an infant 
 child of Nobunanga's eldest son, whom he set up as titular Kubo- 
 Sama. 
 
 He showed at first the same favor to the Catholics as his prede- 
 cessor had done, and the more so as Ucondono, his confederate 
 against the rebel Aquichi, was himself a convert, as were others of 
 his great vassals and principal officers of his court and army. 
 
 As the son of Nobunanga could not keep quiet, he was presently 
 stripped of all authority, though his life was spared, and Faxiba, 
 assuming to himself the high title of Kambakundono, strengthened 
 uimself still farther by marrying a daughter of the B,airi. 
 
PERSECUTION COMMENCED. 97 
 
 Desirous to outdo his predecessor in everything, he converted 
 Osaka, which had, till lately subdued by Nobunanga, been under 
 the rule of a bonze, into a great city, and he built in its neighbor- 
 hood a great stone castle. To this city,, made his capital, the Jesuit 
 seminary, originally established in the now ruined Anzuquiama, was 
 removed, another being also set up in the neighboring city of Sakai. 
 The king of Naugato was even induced to allow the reintroduction of 
 missionaries into his territories. The king of Bungo having appealed 
 to Faxiba for aid against his neighbors, the converted general Con- 
 dera, the chief commander of his cavalry, whom he sent to Ximo, 
 not only rescued the young king Joscimon from his enemies, the 
 kings of Chicugen and Saxuma, who had taken his capital, and 
 ravaged his territories, but succeeded also in bringing up to the point 
 of baptism that fickle and inconstant prince, who had long been a 
 great trial to the missionaries, as well as to his pious father, Civan, 
 who, having given up to him the reins of government, had been treated 
 thenceforth with very little respect. The result of this interference 
 also was to reduce the whole of Ximo to the power of the emperor, 
 who now reigned supreme over Ximo, Sikokf, and all the western 
 part of Nipon, though still obliged to pay a certain deference and 
 respect to the pretensions and power of the local kings and princes, 
 whom, however, he required to be frequent attendants on his court, 
 and to leave their wives and children there as hostages, and whose 
 authority and consequence he sought by all means to diminish. 
 
 Peace thus reestablished, everything seemed to favor the spread 
 of Catholicity, when, all of a sudden, and in the most unexpected 
 manner, in the month of July, 1587, the emperor signed an order 
 for the banishment of the missionaries ; and because Ucondono 
 would not renounce his religion (at least such was the ostensible 
 cause), stripped him at once of his place and his property. Father 
 Cuello, the vice-provincial, was ordered to assemble all the mission- 
 aries at Firando ; and, in obedience to this order, they collected 
 there to the number of about one hundred and twenty, only Father 
 Gnecchi remaining concealed at Osaka, and one brother in Bungo. 
 But when the emperor commanded them to embark on board a 
 Portuguese vessel about to sail, they resolved not to obey. A few 
 indeed went on board and sailed for China ; but the greater part 
 remained, a message being sent to the emperor that the vessel oould 
 9 
 
98 JAPAN. — A. D. 1582—1588. 
 
 not carry the others ; to which he responded by ordering all the 
 churches in Miako, Osaka and Sakai, to be destroyed. The con- 
 verted princes, however, in general, stood firm, except Joscimon, 
 king of Bungo; and even the unconverted ones are said to have 
 protested against the emperor's edict as in violation of the freedom 
 of religious opinion heretofore allowed. The missionaries, in dis- 
 guise, were distributed through the territories of their adherents. 
 The emperor's grand admiral, Tsucamidono, who was viceroy of 
 Ximo, though himself a convert, still kept the confidence of the 
 emperor, as did also Condera, the chief commander of his cavalry- 
 The Portuguese merchants were admitted as before. After a little 
 while the emperor seemed disposed to wink at the conduct of the 
 converted princes, and the missionaries soon began to conceive 
 hopes that, by caution on their part, the work of conversion might 
 still go on, the stimulus of a prohibition not very strictly enforced, 
 more than supplying all the benefits hitherto derived from the eclat 
 of imperial favor. 
 
 Some difficulty about obtaining recruits for the imperial seraglio, 
 especially from the province of Figin, celebrated for its handsome 
 women, but in which the converts were numerous, was said to have 
 provoked the emperor, in a fit of drunken fury, to put forth so sud- 
 denly his edict of persecution. But, in fact, his policy brooked no 
 power but his own. He did not fancy a religion which taught his 
 subjects to look up with implicit reverence to a distant and foreign 
 potentate ; nor probably was his hostility to the Jesuits much dif- 
 ferent in substance from that sentiment which had caused Henry 
 VIII., of England, fifty years earlier, to break with the holy see 
 — a breach also ascribed by the Catholics to amorous passion. 
 
 But the cautious and artful emperor, who, however he might 
 give way to sudden fits of violence and caprice, was a perfect 
 master of all the arts of dissimulation, knowing, as well as Bona- 
 parte, if not better, how to wait till the pear was ripe, was not yet 
 wholly prepared to break with the converted kings and nobles, 
 whom he found, perhaps, as well as the humbler converts, more 
 attached to their faith than he had supposed. There were too many 
 inflammable materials in his yet unconsolidated empire, for him to 
 run the risk of provoking a rebellion ; and, besides, there still re- 
 mained to be subdued eight independent provinces in the east and 
 
RETURN OE THE AMBASSADORS. 9i* 
 
 north of Nipon, including a kingdom of five provinces, in which 
 were situated the great cities of Suruga and Jedo. 
 
 The conquest of this kingdom was speedily achieved, partly by 
 arts and partly by arms. A new palace was erected for the Dairi, in 
 place of the old one, which had been burnt during the late troubles 
 at Miako. A splendid temple had also been built near that city, 
 in which it was suspected that the emperor intended to cause him- 
 self to be worshipped, as his predecessor had done ; when, in August, 
 1588, Father Valignani, appointed ambassador to the emperor and 
 kings of Japan, from the Portuguese viceroy of Goa, arrived at 
 Macao, on his way to Nagasaki, having in his company the return- 
 ing ambassadors to the Pope, who had touched at Goa on their way 
 home, and who had stopped there a whole year before proceeding 
 for Japan.* 
 
 * During this residence at Macao the Japanese ambassadors were not idle. 
 They were engaged upon a very remarkable work, printed at Macao in 
 1590 in Japanese and Latin, purporting to be composed by the ambassadors, 
 and giving, by way of dialogue, an account not only of the embassy, but of 
 Japan and of all the countries, European and Oriental, which they had vis- 
 ited. The Latin title is De Missione Legatorum Japonensium ad Romanam 
 curiam, rebusque in Europaac toto in itinere animadversis, Dialogus, fyc. — 
 " A Dialogue concerning the Japanese Embassy to the Court of Rome, and the 
 things observed in Europe and on the whole journey, collected from the journal 
 of the ambassadors, and rendered into Latin by Ed. de Laude, priest of the 
 Society of Jesus." It is from this work, though he does not give the title of 
 it, that Hackluyt extracted the " Excellent Treatise of the Kingdom of China 
 and of the Estate and Government thereof," contained in his second volume, 
 and of which he speaks in his epistle dedicatory to that volume, first published 
 in 1599, as "the most exact account of those parts that is yet come to 
 light." " It was printed," he tells us, " in Latin, in Makoa, a city of China, 
 in China paper, in the year 1590, and was intercepted in the great carac 
 Madre de Dios, two years after, enclosed in a case of sweet cedar wood, 
 and lapped up almost a hundred fold in fine Calicut cloth, as though it had 
 been some incomparable jewel." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. EXTENT OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE. VALIGNANI AR 
 
 RIVES AT NAGASAKI. PROGRESS HITHERTO OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH. — 
 
 THE EMPEROR'S PROJECTS AGAINST CHINA. — VALIGNANl'S VISIT TO THE 
 EMPEROR AT MIAKO. UCONDONO. THE RETURNED JAPANESE AMBASSA- 
 DORS. AUDIENCE GIVEN TO VALIGNANI. THE VICEROY'S LETTER. THE 
 
 INTERPRETER RODRIGUEZ. A. D. 1588—1593. 
 
 The Japanese islands had. been found by Xavier and his suc- 
 cessors divided into numerous principalities, which, though they 
 acknowledged a nominal subordination to one imperial head, were 
 substantially independent, and engaged in perpetual wars with each 
 other. The superior abilities of two successive military usurpers, 
 Nobunanga, who ruled from 1567 to 1582, and Faxiba, who took 
 first the title of Kambacundono, and subsequently that of Taiko- 
 Sama, had consolidated these numerous states into a real empire, 
 embracing then as now the three principal islands of Nipon, 
 Ximo (or Kiusiu), and Sikoke, with many smaller ones, and some 
 claims also of authority over parts, at least, of the large northerly 
 island of Matsmai or Jeso, the latter the aboriginal name. 
 
 Among the dependencies, at present, of the Japanese empire, 
 are reckoned at the north, besides this island, the southern half of 
 the large island or peninsula of Sagaleen, called by the Japanese 
 Oke Jeso (upper Jeso), or, as Siebold says, Kraeto, and the three 
 smaller Kurile islands, Kona Shir, Eetoorpoo, and Ooroop, num- 
 bered on the Russian charts as the 20th, 19th and 18th Kurile 
 islands, and the two latter called by the Dutch State's Island and 
 Company's Island. On the south, the Lew Chew Islands form, or 
 did form (for the Japanese seem lately to have renounced their 
 claim of sovereignty), a dependency of the kingdom of Satsuma. 
 But all these are of comparatively recent acquisition, subsequent 
 
EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE. lOi 
 
 to the accession of Faxiba. It is said, indeed, on Japanese author- 
 ity, that Jeso was first invaded in 1443, by the Japanese family of 
 Matsmai ; but it is apparent from missionary letters, that, in 1620, 
 it was a recent settlement. The Japanese annals date the conquest 
 of the Lew Chew Islands from the year 1610 ; and, according tc 
 Golownin, the Japanese settlements on Sagaleen have been subse- 
 quent to the voyage of La Perouse in 1787. 
 
 Of Nipon, at least equal in extent to Great Britain, and with 
 a population nearer, it would seem, to that of Great Britain now 
 than to what that island could boast in the reign of Elizabeth, the 
 missionaries were as yet acquainted only with the south-western 
 part — their establishments being confined to the kingdom of Nau- 
 gato, at its western extremity, where it is separated from Ximo by 
 a narrow strait, and to the great cities of Miako, Osaka and 
 Sakai, situated towards the middle of the southern coast. Many 
 princes, nobles and large landed proprietors, had fallen under the 
 influence of the Jesuits, and had professed the new faith ; but it 
 does not appear that either in Nipon or in the adjoining island of 
 Sikokf (about equal in extent to Sicily), any considerable progress 
 had been made in converting the rural population. It was in the 
 island of Ximo, the westernmost in situation and the second in size 
 (two thirds as large as Ireland), that the new religion had taken 
 the firmest root. The kingdom of Bungo, indeed almost the whole 
 of the eastern portion of that island, was thoroughly indoctrinated 
 with the new faith ; and such was still more the case with the 
 kingdom of Arima and the principality of Omura, embracing that 
 great south-western peninsula itself, divided into three smaller pen- 
 insulas by two deep bays, one opening to the south, and the other 
 to the west, at the head of the latter of which is situated the city 
 of Nagasaki. 
 
 Founded in 1579 by converts to the new faith, and made the 
 centre of the Portuguese trade to Japan, as well as of the Jesuit 
 missions, Nagasaki had grown up with great rapidity ; nor was 
 any other worship practised in it except that of the new religion. 
 It had become the largest and most important town in Ximo ; and, 
 since the recent subjection of that island to the imperial authority, 
 according to the new policy of weakening the local princes, the 
 emperor had assumed the appointment of its governor. Nagasaki 
 9* 
 
102 JAPAN. A. D. 1588—1593. 
 
 ■ 
 
 being placed, along with Miako, Osaka and Sakai, in the list of 
 imperial towns. * 
 
 At the date of the edict, so unexpectedly issued in 1787, for the 
 banishment of the Jesuits, there were in Japan three hundred 
 members of the company, a novitiate, a college, two preparatory 
 seminaries for the education of young nobles designed for the church, 
 two hundred and fifty churches, and a number of converts, amount- 
 ing, probably, to between two and three hundred thousand, though 
 the estimate of the Jesuits was much larger. Notwithstanding the 
 apostasy of Joscimon, the young king of Bungo (whose father, 
 Civan, had died just before the emperor's edict had appeared), the 
 numerous converts in that kingdom remained firm in the faith. 
 That zealous Catholic, the prince of Omura, had also lately deceased ; 
 but the young prince, his only son and successor, who had been 
 educated by the Jesuits, was hardly less zealous than his father 
 had been. The king of Arima also continued steady in the faith, 
 It was this king who, along with the deceased king of Bungo and 
 the deceased prince of Omura, had sent the ambassadors to the 
 Pope, of whose visit to Europe an account has been given in a pre- 
 ceding chapter, and whom the last chapter left at Macao, on their 
 return to Japan, in company with Father Valignani, who had been 
 deputed by the viceroy of Groa as his ambassador to the emperor. 
 
 It was at Macao that Valignani and his companions learned 
 the news of the edict for the banishment of the Jesuits. It 
 was said^it Macao that the emperor was a good deal mollified, 
 and seemed inclined to wink at the general disregard of his edict, 
 yet as Valignani was himself a Jesuit, and had once already visited 
 Japan in that character, he did not judge it best to proceed to 
 Japan till he had first obtained express permission to do so. On 
 the representations of the Christian princes, who put forward Valig- 
 nani's character as ambassador, the emperor readily consented to 
 receive him ; and, accompanied by the returning Japanese envoys 
 and some twenty Jesuits, he landed at Nagasaki, in June, 1590, 
 where he was received with great affection by the converted 
 princes of Ximo, and by Father Gomez, who, on the death of 
 Cuello, had succeeded to the post of vice-provincial. The emperor 
 in the late re-distribution of the kingdoms of that island, had liber* 
 ally provided for Tsucamidono, the grand admiral, and for Condera 
 
CLERICAL FORCE OF THE JESUITS. 1Q'6 
 
 his general of horse, both of whom, notwithstanding their con- 
 tinued adhesion to the new faith, still retained his favor. To 
 Tsucamidono he had given the kingdom of Kingo, and to Condera 
 that of Buygen, so that almost the whole of the island of Ximo 
 was now ruled by converted princes. Even the changeable Joscimon, 
 not finding his apostasy so advantageous as he had expected, soon 
 sought and presently obtained a reconciliation to the church. The 
 king of Firando was not friendly, but he was kept in check by the 
 number of converts among his subjects, especially by a very zeal- 
 ous converted wife, a sister of the prince of Omura — whom he 
 complained of as having more influence over his kingdom than him- 
 self — and also by his fear of driving off the Portuguese merchants, 
 who still occasionally visited his island. 
 
 Notwithstanding the emperor's edict of expulsion, there still 
 remained. in Japan a hundred and forty Jesuits, including those lately 
 brought by Valignani. The seminary of nobles at Osaka had been 
 broken up, most of the pupils retiring with their teachers ; but 
 *he other seminary in the kingdom of Arima was still maintained, 
 being, for greater security, removed to a retired spot surrounded 
 with woods. The college and novitiate, for similar reasons, 
 were transferred to the island of Amakusa. Besides these, the 
 Jesuits had twenty other houses of residence. Those districts in 
 which the missionaries had no settled establishments they supplied 
 by frequent journeys, which they made secretly, and generally in 
 disguise, being assisted also by a great number of adroit and zeal- 
 ous native catechists, who not only maintained the fervor of the 
 old converts, but daily added new ones to the number. This em- 
 ployment of catechist was held in great honor in the church of 
 Japan. None were admitted into it except persons of approved 
 virtue, generally young men of family and promise, devoted by 
 their parents from their infancy to a service upon which they 
 entered for life, being ordained with much ceremony, and wearing 
 a garb similar to that of the missionaries with whom they lived in 
 community, observing the same rules. Conversions still continued 
 to be made among the upper as well as among the lower classes, 
 and the numerous adherents to the new faith, or favorers of it, in 
 the court and household of the emperor, including even the em- 
 press, carefully watched and reported to the missionaries every 
 
104 JAPAN. — A. D. 1588—1593. 
 
 word or hint dropped by him, from which his disposition and 
 intentions might be conjectured. 
 
 At this moment the emperor's thoughts seemed a good deal 
 withdrawn from domestic affairs, being engrossed by a war, which 
 he had determined to commence by invading Corea, a dependency 
 of the Chinese empire, and the part of the continent of Asia near- 
 est to Japan. For this purpose he was constructing a fleet at a 
 port of Ximo, on the strait of Corea. Not long after Valignani's 
 arrival at Nagasaki, leave was obtained for him to visit the e/n- 
 peror's court at Miako ; but his friends there advised that, instead 
 of ecclesiastics, his retinue should be composed as much as possible 
 of Portuguese merchants. The merchants at Nagasaki entered 
 zealously into the affair, and not less than twenty-seven of them 
 accompanied Valignani, in the style of great lords, sparing no ex- 
 pense to give magnificence to the ambassador's train. He took with 
 him also four priests, some young Japanese Jesuits not yet 
 ordained, and the four returned youthful ambassadors. These 
 ambassadors had learned to sing in the European style, and 
 chanted church music tolerably well. They also had with them a 
 great show of maps, globes, clocks, watches, and other European 
 curiosities, which attracted much attention. Their description of 
 what they had seen and heard made a deep impression upon the 
 princes and nobles, who flocked from all quarters to see them. 
 And there was ample leisure for this, as the approach of the am- 
 bassador to Miako was delayed for more than two months by the 
 death of the emperor's only son. 
 
 In this interval Valignani had had the pleasure of a visit from 
 the disgraced Ucondono, whose face he was rejoiced to see lighted 
 up with an air of content rarely seen among those on whom the 
 favors of fortune are most prodigally showered. He protested that 
 the happiest day in his life was that on which he had lost every- 
 thing for Jesus Christ. He communicated to Father Valignani a 
 design he had formed of quitting the world altogether, and conse- 
 crating himself entirely to the service of God ; but besides that he 
 had a wife and a numerous family, whom his retreat would have 
 left without resource, the father considered that he was much 
 younger than the emperor ; that if reestablished in his offices and 
 his possessions, he might render much greater services to the church 
 
VALIGNANl'S AUDIENCE. 10t> 
 
 by remaining in the world than oy quitting it, and on that ground 
 he advised Ucondono not to withdraw from that station in life in 
 which Providence had placed him. 
 
 At last the emperor consented to admit Valignani to an 
 audience, but only on condition that he should say nothing about 
 religion or the revocation of the edict against the Jesuits. 
 Through the care of Condera, to whom that business had been 
 entrusted, the embassy was received at Miako with all honor, and 
 was able to make a display which strongly impressed the inhabi- 
 tants, and even the emperor in its favor. On the day of audience, 
 Dainangandono, the emperor's nephew and presumptive heir, at- 
 tended by a great number of lords, met the ambassador, and con- 
 ducted him to the hall of audience. This hall, which opened upon 
 a magnificent balcony, before which spread a parterre of great 
 beauty, consisted of five several divisions, rising, like steps, one 
 above the other. The first served as an ante-chamber, or hall of 
 waiting, for the gentlemen in attendance. In the two next were 
 assembled the lords of the court and the great officers of the em- 
 pire, arranged in order, according to their rank. In the fourth, 
 there were only two persons, a priest who held the first dignity in 
 the household of the Dairi, and the chief counsellor of that same 
 dignitary ; by the side of whom Dainangandono also took his place, 
 after introducing the ambassador to the fifth and highest apart- 
 ment, in which the emperor was seated alone, on his heels, in the 
 Japanese fashion, upon an elevated throne, approached by steps on 
 all sides. Father Valignani was preceded by one of the Portu- 
 guese gentlemen of his suite, bearing the letter of the viceroy of 
 the Indies, written in gilded letters upon fine vellum, with a golden 
 seal attached to it, the whole enclosed in a little box beautifully 
 wrought. That letter was as follows : * 
 
 LETTER OF THE VICERO*Y OF GOA TO THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN. 
 
 " Most Serene Emperor : Though the great space that separates us has 
 not hitherto allowed me much communication with your majesty, yet -fame 
 and the religious men who labor in your empire to make known the law of 
 the true God to your subjects, have informed me of the great deeds done by 
 you, and of the victories which have made you the greatest monarch who 
 has reigned in Japan for ages ; and I have therefore thought it my duty to 
 congratulate your majesty on the happy successes with which the God of 
 
106 JAPAN. — A. D. 1588—1593. 
 
 heaven has favored you. The same religious men, who are, for the most part, 
 natural-born subjects of the great prince whom the Indies obey, and who gc 
 through the earth with a truly heroical courage to teach men to know and to 
 adore the Author of nature, have also informed me of the distinguished favors 
 with which your majesty has uniformly honored them, and have begged me 
 to convey to you their thanks, which I willingly do, conjointly with my own ; 
 and that, indeed, is the particular object of this embassy, with which I have 
 charged the Father Alexander Valignani, who has the honor to be already 
 known to you. After rendering to your majesty his humblest thanks for 
 your past favors, he will supplicate you, in my name, to vouchsafe to con- 
 tinue them ; and I dare to assure your majesty that subjects for your favors 
 cannot be found who will merit them better. Favors to them I shall esteem as 
 favors to me, and shall take every opportunity to acknowledge them as such. 
 I have charged my ambassador to present you with two Arabian genets, with 
 their housings and harness, two swords, and two guns of a new fashion, two 
 webs of tapestry embroidered with gold, and two complete suits of wrought 
 steel armor, a dagger, which serves also as a pistol, and a tent for country 
 excursions. 
 
 " At Goa, this year of Redemption, 1587. 
 
 "Dom Edward de Menesez."* 
 
 The presents seemed greatly to please the emperor, by whom 
 they were carefully examined. A signal being given, Valignani 
 was led up the steps of the throne to the emperor's feet, whom, on 
 bended knee, he saluted, after the European fashion, by kissing 
 his hand, — a privilege to which all the members of his suite were 
 admitted in succession, the ambassador being meanwhile seated in 
 "the third compartment among the grandees of the court. Tea was 
 then served to the emperor in a gilded cup, which, after sipping 
 from it a little, he sent to the ambassador, who, at the same time, 
 received, by way of present, a hundred silver platters and four silk 
 dresses. Presents were also distributed among the members of his 
 suite. The emperor then retired, first directing his nephew to en- 
 tertain the ambassador at dinner, which he did, but with more, of 
 ceremony than good cheer. The guests, consisted of three mem- 
 bers of the imperial family and eight other great lords, all eating, 
 each from his own little table or salver, in profound* silence, many 
 persons of inferior rank standing about them. The ambassador's 
 suite were entertained at the same time in a separate apartment. 
 
 * This letter, with the reply in the next chapter, is given by Froer, from 
 whom Gusman has copied them. 
 
VALIGNANl'S AUDIENCE. 107 
 
 After dinner the emperor again made his appearance in undress, 
 and, seating himself beside Father Yalignani, conversed with him for 
 some time. He also conversed freely with the four returned Japan- 
 ese, and seemed much pleased at hearing them sing and play in the 
 European fashion. He made great offers to one of them ; but they 
 had all made up their minds to enter the company of the Jesuits, 
 which, in spite of a good deal of opposition on the part of their 
 friends and relations, they presently did.* Passing into the hall 
 where the ambassador's suite had dined, the emperor addressed 
 them with great familiarity, and they improved the opportunity to 
 complain of some oppressions, on the part of the collector of the 
 port of Nagasaki, which he promised should be redressed.! In the 
 evening, Rodriguez, a young Portuguese Jesuit, who acted as one 
 of Yalignani's interpreters, was sent for to show the emperor how 
 to wind up a clock which the ambassador had presented to him. 
 The emperor seemed much pleased with Rodriguez's conversation, 
 detaining him till late at night. On dismissing him, he bade 
 him say to Father Yalignani that he was at liberty to remain at 
 Miako or wherever he pleased, till an answer to the viceroy's let- 
 ter was prepared, but that he must take care that the ecclesiastics 
 who accompanied him comported themselves with discretion, so as 
 not to drive him into striking disagreeable blows. Not long after 
 Rodriguez was selected as the emperor's interpreter, in which 
 capacity he became attached to the court, and, by his access to the 
 emperor and influence with him, had opportunities of rendering 
 essential service to his order. I • 
 
 * Letters from the ambassadors to Sixtus V., written at Nagasaki after their 
 arrival there, and giving an account of their voyage home, may be found in 
 Hay's collection. 
 
 t Valignani was not the first European to obtain an imperial audience. 
 The same favor had been granted, as already mentioned, by Josi Tir to 
 Father Vilela, in 1G59. Louis«Froez had also been admitted, in 1665, to an 
 audience of the same emperor, of which he has given a short but interesting 
 account. 
 
 t This is the same Rodriguez whose Japanese grammars are mentioned in 
 note A, Appendix, and who subsequently was the writer of many annual 
 letters from Japan. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 NEW TROUBLES OP THE MISSIONARIES FROM THEIR OWN COUNTRYMEN. — THE 
 EMPEROR CLAIMS HOMAGE OF THE GOVERNOR OF THE PHILIPPINES. — MU- 
 TUAL JEALOUSIES OF THE PORTUGUESE AND SPANIARDS. SPANISH ADVEN- 
 TURERS IN JAPAN. THE EMPEROR'S SUSPICIONS EXCITED. HIS REPLY 
 
 TO THE VICEROY OF GOA.. A. D. 1591—1592. 
 
 Valignani's gracious reception greatly raised the hopes of the 
 Japanese converts. But much annoyance was soon experienced 
 from two pagan lords, who had been appointed joint governors of 
 Nagasaki. Nor was it pagan hostility alone which the Jesuits 
 had to dread. Enemies even more dangerous were found among 
 their own countrymen in Japan, many of whom had ceased to ex- 
 hibit that zeal for the faith, at first so universal. The irregular 
 conduct of certain Portuguese merchants, in frequenting ports where 
 there were no missionaries, and where they could freely follow their 
 own devices, had greatly troubled the Jesuit fathers. A Japanese 
 tdventurer, by name Firanda, having gone to the Philippines 
 o trade, had taken it into his head to suggest to the emperor of 
 Japan to require the Spanish governor of those islands to acknowl- 
 edge him as sovereign. This idea, conveyed to the emperor through 
 a Japanese courtier with whom Firanda was intimate, was eagerly 
 caught at by a prince rendered vain by the elevation to which he 
 Had attained, and whose head was filled with schemes for still 
 further extending his empire. He wrote an imperious letter to the 
 governor of the Philippines, demanding his homage, and despatched 
 \fc by the hand of Firanda, who applied to Father Valignani, to 
 write to the Jesuits at Manilla, and to the Spanish governor, in 
 furtherance of this project. Valignani refused to write any such 
 letters, alleging as an ostensible reason, that he had no acquaint- 
 ance with the governor of the Philippines, nor authority over the 
 
SPANIARDS IN JAPAN. 109 
 
 Jesuits of Manilla ; and, in consequence of this refusal, Firanda did 
 not venture to carry the letter himself, but sent it by another 
 hand. Yalignani wrote, however, by a simultaneous opportunity, to 
 the Jesuits of Manilla, informing them of this affair, suggesting its 
 delicate character, and the expediency, while due care was had of 
 the honor of the Spanish crown, of not giving to the emperor of 
 Japan any pretence for renewing his persecution of the mission- 
 aries. 
 
 Notwithstanding the union of the crowns of Spain and Portugal, 
 upon the head of Philip II., a very fierce jealousy and hatred con- 
 tinued to exist between the two nations ; and this feeling was par- 
 ticularly violent at Manilla, which city, founded in 1572, was almost 
 contemporaneous in its origin with Nagasaki, and whose merchants 
 looked very enviously at the monopoly of the trade to Japan secured 
 to the Portuguese, and to the city of Macao, by the terms of the 
 union between the two crowns. This express exclusion of all 
 Spanish merchants from Japan had been indeed already broken 
 through, in at least two instances, by the arrival of one Jean de Solis 
 from Peru, by way of Macao, and of another Spanish merchant 
 from the Philippines, both of whom, after various adventures, and 
 receiving aid and services from the Jesuit missionaries, had reached 
 Nagasaki. Solis soon after proceeded to Satsuma on the southern 
 coast of Ximo, where he commenced building a vessel in which to 
 trade to China and thence to Peru, — a project in which he was 
 presently joined by the other Spaniard. But to carry out this 
 scheme it became necessary for Solis to get back a sum of money 
 which he had been compelled to deposit in the hands of the Portu- 
 guese, at Nagasaki, as security for certain debts which he had con- 
 tracted at Macao ; and because Father Valignani would not help 
 them in this matter, the two Spaniards threatened to give informa- 
 tion to the emperor of the large number of Jesuits still in Japan, 
 in violation of his edict, and to denounce the princes who gave 
 them shelter. 
 
 The emperor, meanwhile, had been a good deal soured and his 
 suspicions excited by some suggestions, thrown out by the enemies 
 of the Jesuits, that Valignani was no real ambassador, that being 
 a mere pretence to secure his entry into Japan. Means, indeed, 
 had been found to quiet him upon this head, to which the repre- 
 10 
 
110 JAPAN. — A. D. 1591—1592. 
 
 sentations of Rodriguez greatly contributed ; but the answer which 
 he caused to be ^prepared to the viceroy's letter, took so high a 
 tone, and was so filled with invectives against the missionaries, that 
 Valignani was unwilling to be the bearer of it. 
 
 Finally, by the persuasions of the governor of Miako, an idola- 
 ter, but favorable to the new religion, the emperor was induced to 
 modify his letter ; and he even adopted a crafty suggestion of Rod- 
 riguez that the Jesuits whom Valignani had brought with him 
 should remain at Nagasaki as hostages, till the authenticity of his 
 mission was placed beyond question. The letter, as finally modified, 
 a frank exposition of Taiko's policy, was in the following terms : 
 
 TAIKO-SAMA TO THE VICEROY OF GOA. 
 
 "Most Illustrious Lord: I received with pleasure the letter which you 
 wrote me, and in reading it seemed to realize that great distance between us 
 of which you speak. Japan contains more than sixty realms or principali- 
 ties, which have been for a long time agitated by troubles and civil wars, 
 growing out of the refusal of the princes to render to their sovereign lord 
 the obedience which they owe him. The sight of so many evils sensibly 
 afflicted me from my earliest age, and I revolved in my mind a remedy for 
 them ; and with that view I laboriously applied myself to the acquisition of 
 three virtues the most necessary for so great an undertaking. In the first 
 place, I studied affability, so as to gain all hearts. Next I strove to accustom 
 myself to judge soundly of all things, and to comport myself at all times with 
 prudence and discretion. In the third place, I have omitted no occasion of 
 inspiring a high idea of my valor. Thus have I succeeded in subjecting all 
 Japan to my authority, which I govern with a mildness equal to the courage 
 displayed in subduing it. I have especially caused the effects of my tender- 
 ness to be felt by the laborers who cultivate the earth. All my severity is 
 reserved for those who deviate from the paths of virtue. Nothing is more 
 tranquil than Japan at this moment, and it is this tranquillity which makes 
 it strong. This vast monarchy is like a firmly-fixed rock ; all the efforts of 
 its enemies cannot shake it. So, not only am I at peace at home, but even 
 very distant countries send to render me the obedience which is my due. I 
 expect soon to conquer China, and as I have no doubt of succeeding in it, I 
 hope we shall soon be much nearer to each other, and that the communication 
 between us will not be so difficult. 
 
 " As to what regards religion, Japan is the realm of the Kami, that is, of 
 Sin, the beginning of all things ; and the good order, of the government de 
 pends upon the exact observance of the ancient laws of which the Kami are 
 the authors. They cannot be departed from without overturning the subor- 
 dination which ought to exist, of subjects to their sovereign, wives to their hus- 
 
POLICY OF TAIKO-SAMA. Hi 
 
 bands, children to their parents, vassals to their lords, and servants to their 
 masters. These laws are necessary to maintain good order within and tranquil- 
 lity without. The fathers, called the Company, have come to these islands tc 
 teach another religion ; but as that of the Kami is too deeply rooted to be erad- 
 icated, this new law can only serve to introduce into Japan a diversity of 
 worship very prejudicial to the state. It is on that account that, by an im- 
 perial edict, I have forbidden these strange doctors to continue to preach 
 their doctrine. I have even ordered them to leave Japan, and I am deter- 
 mined not to allow anybody to come thither to retail new opinions. But 
 I still desire that commerce, as between you and me, may continue on its old 
 footing. I shall keep the way open to you both by sea and land, by freeing 
 the one from pirates and the other from robbers. The Portuguese may trade 
 with my subjects in all security, and I shall take care that nobody harms 
 them. All the presents mentioned in your letter have been faithfully 
 delivered ; and I send you in return some rarities of this country, of which 
 a list is annexed. For other matters I refer you to your ambassador, and 
 will therefore say no more. Dated the 25th year of the era Tengo, and the 
 25th of the 7th month." 
 
 It would seem from this letter and from what we know of the 
 actual policy adopted by Taiko-Sama and his predecessor Nobu- 
 nanga, that, in seeking to reestablish the imperial authority on its 
 old traditional basis, they had aimed, also, at reedifying the old 
 national religion. Nobunanga had treated the Buddhist bonzes 
 with very great severity ; and, though the policy of Taiko was less 
 bloody, they do not appear to have enjoyed any share of his favor; 
 and it is to be observed that in his letter he speaks exclusively of 
 the religion of the Kami as the creed proper to Japan. The assur- 
 ances on the subject of commerce seemed the more necessary on 
 account of a dispute which had arisen between the governors of 
 Nangasaki and the commander of the annual Portuguese ship, 
 which, however, on appeal to the emperor, had been settled against 
 the governors. The presents that accompanied this letter were two 
 paits of Japanese armor, not so strong as the armor of Europe, but 
 very handsome, a kind of espontoon or halbert, enclosed in a scab- 
 bard of gold, and a sabre and poniard of the highest temper, and 
 richly ornamented. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE EXPEDITION AGAINST COREA. — THE EMPEROR ASSOCIATES HIS NEPHEW- 
 
 CITY OP FUSIMI. CORRESPONDENCE OF THE EMPEROR WITH THE GOV' 
 
 ERNOR OF MANILLA. THE JESUITS DENOUNCED BY THE SPANISH ENVOYS 
 
 CONSEQUENCES THEREOF. DEPARTURE OF VALIGNANI. A. D. 1592. 
 
 Meanwhile, an army of eighty thousand men, divided into 
 four corps, had been raised for the war against Corea ; and not 
 to leave the country without a head, should the emperor choose 
 himself to lead the invading forces, he took his nephew as an 
 associate in the empire, resigning to him the title of Kambacun- 
 dono, while he assumed for himself that of Taiko-Sama, the title 
 by which this most illustrious of the Japanese emperors is com- 
 monly known. 
 
 Though much engaged in this foreign enterprise, he still found 
 time to lay the foundations of the new city of Fusimi, which he 
 designed to make his capital, but the nearness of which to Miako 
 ultimately placed it in the position of a sort of suburb to that 
 ancient city. 
 
 The first division of the invading army, which at length set sail, 
 was led by the grand admiral, king of Fingo, whose troops, as well 
 as those of the second division, led by the son of Condera, the 
 king of Buygen, were drawn from the island of Ximo, and were 
 composed almost entirely, officers as well as men, of Catholic con- 
 verts. And, indeed, the suspicion soon began to be entertained 
 that Corea had been invaded, not so much to add new provinces to 
 the Taiko-Sama's empire, as to keep the converted princes employed 
 away from home. 
 
 While the emperor, to look after and to second the invasion, hast- 
 ened to Ximo, wiiere his presence caused no little alarm to the mis- 
 sionaries, the grand admiral was already making rapid progress 
 
SPANISH INTRIGUES. lit) 
 
 Having taken two places by assault, all the others, as far as the 
 capital, opened their gates. To save their capital, the Coreans 
 fought and lost a pitched battle. A second victory, on the part 
 of the grand admiral, drove the Corean king to seek refuge in 
 China, while the capital opened its gates to the triumphant 
 Japanese.* 
 
 But the joy of the missionarie's at the success of an army led 
 by one of their adherents, and so largely composed of converts, 
 was not a little damped by a side blow from another and an unex 
 pected quarter. So anxious was the Spanish governor of Manilla 
 to improve every chance for opening a trade with Japan, that, in 
 spite of the imperious character of the emperor's letter, he sent 
 an answer to it by a Spanish gentleman named Liano, in which, 
 indeed, he evaded its demands by suggesting that the mean quality 
 of the person who had brought it, and his not having heard any- 
 thing on the subject from the Jesuits at Nagasaki, had led him to 
 suspect its authenticity. Liano, accompanied by a Dominican 
 friar, landed in Satsuma, where he met with Solis, the Spaniard 
 from Peru, still busy with his ship-building enterprise, and in no 
 very good humor with the Portuguese and the Jesuits. To confer 
 with Firanda, the envoys proceeded to Nagasaki, which city they 
 
 * According to the letters of # Louis Froez, the prince of Omura joined the 
 army against Corea with one thousand men, the king of Arima with two 
 thousand, and the king of Bungo with ten thousand, besides mariners and 
 mean people to carry the baggage. The entire number of men-at-arm in 
 the empire, at this time, is stated to have been, by a written catalogue, three 
 hundred thousand. The victories mentioned in the text were gained by an 
 advanced body of fifteen thousand men. The Coreans (of whom to this day 
 we know little or nothing) are described by Froez as different from the Chi- 
 nese in race and language, and superior to them in personal prowess, yet as 
 in a manner tributary to China, whose laws, customs and arts, they had bor- 
 rowed. They are represented as good bowmen, but scantily provided with 
 other weapons, and therefore not able to encounter the cannon, lances and 
 swords, of the Japanese, who had been, beside, practised by continual wars 
 among themselves. But in nautical affairs Froez reckons the Chinese and 
 Coreans as decidedly superior to the Japanese. Translations from several 
 Jesuit letters relating to the Corean war, will be found in Hackluyt, vol. iv., 
 near the end. Siebold, relying upon Japanese authorities, insists that it waa 
 through Corea that the arts, knowledge, language and written characters, of 
 China were introduced into Japan. 
 
 10* * 
 
114 JAPAN. — A. D. 1592. 
 
 left again without any communication with the Portuguese mer- 
 chants, or the missionaries ; and, accompanied by Firanda and his 
 Japanese friend, Faxagava, they hastened to the northern coast of 
 Ximo, where the emperor then was. Faxagava and Firanda 
 translated so ill the letter of the governor of Manilla, as to make 
 it express something of- a disposition to comply with the emperor's 
 pretensions, who, thereupon, wrote a second letter, declaring the 
 other to be genuine, and renewing the demand which it had con- 
 tained of submission and homage. The envoys, without fully un- 
 derstanding its contents, consented to receive this letter j and in the 
 hope that, if the Portuguese were driven away, the commerce of 
 Japan might fall into the hands of the Spaniards of Manilla, they 
 proceeded to suggest heavy complaints against the Portuguese at 
 Nagasaki, whom they not only charged as guilty of great harshness 
 in support of their commercial monopoly, but also with protecting 
 the Jesuits, great numbers of whom, in spite of the emperor's edicts, 
 still continued to be sheltered in that city and its neighborhood. 
 The emperor either was, or had affected to be ignorant of the extent 
 to which his edicts had been disregarded. This information put 
 him into a great rage ; and he issued instant orders for th,e destruc- 
 tion of the splendid church at Nagasaki, hitherto untouched, and 
 also of the house of the Jesuits, who had now no place of residence 
 left there except the hospital of Misrecordia. But these wicked 
 Spaniards did not long go unpunished. Solis, on his way back to 
 Satsuma, perished by shipwreck, as did the Spanish envoys on their 
 return voyage to Manilla. It was stated, too, that the emperor's 
 mother died at Miako, at the very moment of his signing the order 
 for the destruction of the church, — judgments so striking as to 
 become, so we are told by the missionaries, the occasion of many 
 conversions. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when Father Yalignani, leaving Japan 
 for the second time, sailed for Macao in October, 1592. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE COREAN "WAR. SUCCESS OF THE JAPANESE. — TSUKAMDONO 
 
 VICEROY OF COREA. — EDICT OF THE EMPEROR FOR DISARMING THE CON- 
 VERTS IN XIMO. — DISGRACE AND DOWNFALL OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OP 
 
 BUNGO. TERAZABA GOVERNOR OF NAGASAKI. HIS CONVERSION AND 
 
 FRIENDLY ACTS. A. D. 1592—1593. 
 
 Though the emperor did not himself pass into Corea, he sent 
 thither such reinforcements as to raise his army there to the num- 
 ber of two hundred thousand, men. But the Coreans having aban- 
 doned their cities and fled to inaccessible places, burning everything, 
 even to provisions, which they could not carry away (thus setting 
 an example long afterwards followed by the Russians on a similar 
 occasion), this great force was soon reduced to extremities, by which 
 its numbers were rapidly diminished. The Chinese also came to 
 the assistance of the Coreans ; and the grand admiral, with forces 
 so reduced as to be greatly inferior in numbers, was obliged to 
 encounter these new enemies in several desperate engagements. 
 Compelled at last to retreat, he fell back upon a garrison which he 
 had left to keep up his communications with the coast, the com- 
 mand of which he had entrusted to Joscimon, king of Bungo. But 
 that feeble prince, in a moment of terror, had abandoned his post ; 
 and, the grand admiral's communications thus cut off, nothing but 
 his distinguished firmness and courage saved his army from total 
 destruction. After a drawn battle under the walls of the Corean 
 capital, terms of peace were agreed upon, according to which five 
 of the eight provinces of Corea were assigned to the Japanese ; and 
 the commerce between China and Japan, which by the act of the 
 former had for some time been broken off, was again renewed. 
 
 The admiral was named viceroy of Corea, and the converted 
 princes were still detained there at the head of their troops. The 
 
116 JAPAN. — A. D. 1592—1593. 
 
 missionaries, thus separated from their protectors, were filled with 
 new alarms by an order of the emperor for disarming all their 
 converts in Ximo. The king of Bungo, as a punishment for his 
 cowardice, was stripped of his estates ; and in the end he and his 
 family, reduced to absolute poverty, were obliged to retire to Naga- 
 saki, and to live there on the charity of the Jesuits. His territo- 
 ries were assigned to pagan lords, and the converted inhabitants 
 soon felt the consequences of the change. Indeed, throughout Ximo 
 the converts suffered greatly by the absence of their princes, of whom 
 several died about this time. But, in general, the Catholics stood 
 firm ; and several of the Jesuit fathers having made their way to 
 Corea, new converts were made in the ranks of the army. 
 
 The missionaries also found a new friend in Terazaba, a young 
 man appointed governor of Nagasaki, and who, not long after, 
 was secretly baptized. He represented to the emperor that, if 
 the Portuguese merchants were still to be admitted to trade at 
 Nagasaki, they ought to be allowed some priests, since it was the 
 influence and authority of the priests that kept the merchants in 
 order, settled their quarrels, and obliged them to strict justice in 
 their commercial transactions ; and, uporj the strength of these plau- 
 sible representations, Terazaba obtained leave for the Jesuits to 
 rebuild their house and church at Nagasaki. Father Grnecchi, also, 
 in consideration of his age and infirmities, was allowed to remain 
 at Miako, though without any church, or permission to celebrate 
 divine service openly. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 XA.LOUSY ON THE PART OF THE DOMINICANS AND FRANCISCANS TOWARDS THE 
 
 JESUITS. THIS JEALOUSY COOPERATES WITH THE MERCANTILE JEALOUSY 
 
 OF THE SPANIARDS AT MANILLA. FRANCISCAN FRIARS ESTABLISH THEM- 
 SELVES AT MIAKO, OSAKA AND NAGASAKI. EDICTS AGAINST THEM. — DE- 
 POSITION AND DEATH OF THE EMPEROR'S NEPHEW. A. D. 1593—1595. 
 
 It was not alone against the emperor's hostility and the mercan- 
 t! re envy of the Spanish that the Jesuits had to contend. The 
 n -s»id rise and great successes of the Company of Jesus had excited 
 against them not only the dread and deadly hatred of the Protest- 
 ant* (which might naturally enough have been expected), but feel- 
 ings also of envy and jealousy, scarcely less hostile, and by no 
 means very scrupulous, on the part of their monastic brethren of 
 the Catholic church — the Dominicans, and especially the numerous 
 bodiuts of Franciscans, who had attempted, by various reforms and 
 mod&cations, to revive and purify that ancient order, so as to make 
 it eqw&l to compete with the Jesuits. 
 
 A biief of Pope Gregory XIII., dated in 1585, had forbidden, 
 under pain of the greater excommunication, any but Jesuits to pro- 
 ceed to Japan with the view of exercising any ecclesiastical func- 
 tion thv.re , and this bull was not less disagreeable to the Domini- 
 cans ftrfd Franciscans, than the Portuguese monopoly of the 
 Japanei*} trade was to the Spanish merchants. At Manilla these 
 feelings t*f dissatisfaction, both mercantile and ecclesiastical, com- 
 bined in a common focus, giving rise to the most injurious and 
 unfounded \ reports, which were even embodied in print, of extensive 
 apostasies Among the Japanese converts, and of the great jeopardy 
 into which v Catholicism had been brought by the misconduct of the 
 Jesuits, wb t, at this moment, were out of favor in Spain. 
 
 The samv Faranda already mentioned, having gone in person to 
 
118 JAPAN. — A. D. 1593—1595. 
 
 Manilla, inflamed the zeal of some Franciscans whom he found 
 there, by representing that it was to the Jesuit missionaries person- 
 ally, and not to their religion, that the emperor was opposed. The 
 Spanish governor, not having received the emperor's answer to his 
 former letter, was induced, in the hope of opening the door to com- 
 mercial intercourse, to write a new one; and four Franciscans 
 attached themselves to the bearer of it, eagerly seizing upon this 
 opportunity to gain admission into Japan. 
 
 When the emperor found that these new deputies had not brought 
 the submission which he had demanded, at first he was very angry, 
 but was finally persuaded to allow them to travel through the em- 
 pire, in order to see and to report its greatness. The Franciscans 
 were even suffered to build or buy a house at Miako, to which they 
 presently added a church ; and, being joined by others of their order, 
 a convent was established at Osaka. Two of them having gone to 
 Nagasaki, took possession of a church in the environs of that city, 
 which had remained closed since the commencement of the persecu- 
 tion ; and here, as well as in the other two cities, they performed 
 their religious functions with an ostentation and publicity which 
 greatly alarmed the Jesuits, whom the Franciscans accused of an 
 unworthy timidity. 
 
 The Jesuits, under these circumstances, thought proper to call 
 the attention of these new comers to the bull of Gregory XIII., 
 above referred to, prohibiting the entry into Japan of any ecclesias- 
 tics except those of the Company of Jesus ; to which the Francis- 
 cans replied, that they had entered Japan not as ecclesiastics, but 
 as envoys from the governor of Manilla; and that being there 
 without any violation of the bull, nobody had any right to prevent 
 them from exercising their ecclesiastical functions — a piece of 
 casuistry which not even a Jesuit could have outdone. Yery soon, 
 however, the governor of Nagasaki closed the church of the Fran- 
 ciscans, and, before long, an edict appeared threatening the punish- 
 ment of death to all who frequented their convent and church at 
 Miako, — procedures which the Franciscans were uncharitable 
 enough to ascribe to the intrigues of the Jesuits. It seems prob- 
 able, however, that decisive steps would still earlier have been 
 taken against these over-zealous Franciscans, had not the emperor's 
 attention been engrossed by other more pressing matters. He had 
 
THE DAIRI AND HIS COURT. 119 
 
 conceived a jealousy against his nephew and colleague, whom, by 
 glow and cautious steps, he stripped of all his authority, sending him 
 at length to a monastery of bonzes, where he soon received an 
 order to cut himself open. The thirty-one wives of the deposed 
 prince, with all their children, were publicly beheaded, and all his 
 closest adherents shared his disgrace, and many of them his trag- 
 ical fate* An infant son, by name Fide Jori, borne to the emperor 
 from his new wife, the daughter of the Dairi, and to whom he 
 desired to secure the succession, was the innocent cause of these 
 cruelties. No sooner was the nephew out of the way than that 
 infant received from the Dairi the title of Kambucundono. 
 
 * Yet Taiko-Sama was not in general cruel. A curious letter of Father 
 Organtino Brixiano, written in 1594, enumerates, among the reasons of 
 Taiko's great success, his clemency to the conquered princes whom he never 
 put to death after having once promised them their lives, and to whom he 
 granted a revenue, small, but sufficient to maintain them, and which served 
 to keep them quiet. Another reason was his having established for his sol- 
 diers during war a commissariat, of which he paid the expense, by which 
 they were rendered much more efficient. He also kept them employed, for, 
 besides the army maintained in Corea, he set them to work in building or 
 repairing palaces and fortresses, or in other public works. At this time he 
 had thirty thousand men at work upon one castle near Miako, and one hun- 
 dred thousand at Fusimi. He also broke the power of the princes by trans- 
 ferring them to distant parts, while he inspired general respect by his strict 
 justice, from which he was swerved by no considerations of relationship, fam- 
 ily or influence, secular or religious. Another reason mentioned by the mis- 
 sionary does not correspond so well with Taiko's letter to the viceroy of 
 Goa. He is said not only to have disarmed the country people, by whose 
 strength and wealth the petty kingdoms had been sustained, but also to 
 have reduced them to extreme poverty ; but this, perhaps, applies rather to 
 the petty lords than to the actual cultivators. This letter is in Hay's collec- 
 tion, and a part of it, in English, may be found in Hackluiyt's 4th volume. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 GREAT EARTHQUAKE. — MISSION FROM CHINA. ARRIVAL OF A SPANISH 
 
 GALLEON. FRIARS ON BOARD HER. NEW ACCUSATIONS ON HER ACCOUNT 
 
 AGAINST THE JESUITS. CONNECTION OF THE JESUITS WITH THE TRADE TO 
 
 JAPAN. ARRES* OF MISSIONARIES AND CONVERTS. FIRST MARTYRS. 
 
 A. D. 1595-1597. 
 
 The emperor, now at the height of his power and glory, was mak- 
 ing great preparations to receive an embassy from China, when 
 Japan was visited by a frightful earthquake, which almost ruined 
 his new city of Fusimi. The sea rose to an extraordinary height, 
 especially in the strait between Nipon and Sikokf, attended with a 
 terrible destruction of life and property. Nor did the mission from 
 China at all answer the expectation of the emperor, since the am- 
 bassadors demanded nothing less than the entire evacuation of 
 Corea, — a demand which speedily led to a renewal of the war. 
 
 In 1596, a richly-laden Spanish galleon, from the Philip- 
 pines, disabled and driven by adverse winds to the coast of Japan, 
 was induced, partly by persuasions, and partly by a show of force, 
 to enter a harbor on the south coast of Sikokf, where she was imme- 
 diately seized by the local authorities as forfeited. The commander 
 of the vessel sent two of his officers to Miako to solicit a remission 
 of this forfeiture, which mission was charged to have nothing to do 
 with the Jesuits, but to consult only with the Franciscans estab- 
 lished in that city. It had, however, no success. The prize seemed 
 to the emperor too valuable to be given up. Driven at length by 
 extremity to seek the aid of the Jesuits, the ship's company, after 
 being for some time suj)ported by their charity, were shipped off by 
 their assistance to Manilla, all except four Augustine friars, a Do- 
 minican and two Franciscans, who remained in Japan as missionaries. 
 But, instead of getting any thanks from the inhabitants of Manilla, 
 
JESUIT PARTICIPATION IN COMMERCE. 121 
 
 the Jesuits were accused of having b}^ their intrigues caused the for- 
 feiture of the ship and her cargo* 
 
 A narrative of the affair, written by a monk, and full of charges 
 against the Jesuits, was printed there, and sent to Spanish Ameri- 
 ca, whence it was carried to Europe, and widely diffused by the 
 enemies of the order, being soon followed by violent memorials to 
 the same effect, addressed to the Pope and the king of Spain. 
 These charges, however, did not remain unanswered, a reply to them 
 being published at Acapulco, signed by a number of Japanese who 
 traded thither, and by several Spaniards and Portuguese who had 
 been in Japan. 
 
 It was the Manilla pamphlet above referred to which first brought 
 against the Jesuits the charges, ultimately so damaging to the order, 
 of an uncanonical connection with comnferce. The account of this 
 trade, so far as Japan was concerned, as given by the Jesuits them- 
 selves, is as follows. The revenues of the mission had consisted 
 at first only of the charities of some individuals, aided by a sum of 
 five hundred ducats, paid yearly at Macao by the king of Portu- 
 gal — a donation doubled in 1574, to facilitate the foundation of a 
 college. Some considerable amounts had been received at different 
 times from the wealthier native converts ; but almost the whole of 
 these sums had been expended in the founding and support of hos- 
 pitals and other charities. For several years the chief resource of 
 
 * Some curious information respecting the Philippines is contained in a 
 letter dated Mexico, 1590, intercepted on its way to Spain by some English 
 cruiser, and translated and published by Hackluyt in his fourth volume. 
 This letter represents the country as very unhealthy " for us Spaniards," of 
 whom not more than one thousand Avere left alive out of fourteen thousand 
 who had gone there in the twenty years preceding. It seems, too, that the 
 Spaniards at Manilla, not less than the Portuguese at Macao, had succeeded 
 in opening a trade with China. " There is a place in China, which is an 
 harbor called Macaran, which the king has given to the Spaniards freely ; 
 which shall be the place where the ships shall come to traffic. For in this 
 harbor there is a great river, which goeth up into the main land, unto divers 
 towns and cities, which are near to this river." Where was this Spanish 
 Chinese port? 
 
 The annual galleons to New Spain were to Manilla what the annual carac 
 to Japan was to Macao — a main support of the place. The privilege of 
 putting a certain amount of goods on board was distributed among all the 
 resident merchants, offices and public institutions. 
 11 
 
122 JAPAN. — A. D. 1595—1597. 
 
 the fathers for their own support had been the proceeds of a fund 
 of four thousand ducats, which Louis Almeida, on entering the 
 order in 1556, and devoting himself to the Japanese mission, 
 as mentioned in a former chapter, had set aside for that purpose 
 out of his own private fortune, all the rest of which he had 
 bestowed in the founding of hospitals. This fund had been en- 
 trusted by Almeida to certain Portuguese merchants to trade upon 
 for the benefit of the Jesuits. But, though this trust had been 
 faithfully executed, the proceeds of it had been quite too small to 
 support the increasing number of the missionaries. Some small 
 pensions, allowed them by the Popes Gregory XIII. and Sixtus Y., 
 failed to make up the deficiency ; and, at length, it was agreed by 
 the commercial company at Macao, by whom the annual Portuguese 
 carac was fitted out for Japan, and by means of which the chief trade 
 between Japan and the Portuguese was now carried on, that out of 
 the sixteen hundred packages of silks, which formed a part of her 
 cargo, fifty (afterwards increased to eighty) packages should be 
 shipped on account of the Jesuits — an arrangement to which the 
 viceroy of the Indies assented. For this business two commercial 
 agencies were maintained by the Jesuits — one at Macao, the 
 other at Nagasaki. The enemies of the Jesuits insisted that they 
 sent to Japan yearly goods to the value of a hundred and sixty 
 thousand ducats, on which their profits were sixty thousand. This 
 was probably exaggerated ; yet, when Charlevoix pretends that 
 the whole annual Portuguese trade and profits did not amount 
 to those sums, his statement is refuted as well by other known facts 
 as by the vastly larger value of the cargoes of such of the annual 
 caracs as some years later fell into the hands of the Dutch. 
 
 While the unlucky affair of the forfeited Spanish galleon caused 
 Europe to resound with accusations against the Jesuits, in Japan 
 itself it had results more speedy and more fatal. The Spanish pilot, 
 finding that entreaties did not succeed, had attempted to make an 
 impression upon those who had seized the ship by expatiating on 
 the power of the king of Spain, the extent of whose dominions in 
 Europe, Asia, Africa and America, he exhibited on a map of the 
 world. To the inquiry how such an extent of dominion had been 
 obtained, the pilot replied that nothing was easier ; that the king 
 began by sending missionaries into the countries he wished to con- 
 
FIRST MARTYRS. 12S 
 
 quer, who, as soon as they had converted a part of the inhabitants, 
 were followed by troops, which troops, being joined by the converts, 
 easily succeeded in subduing the country. This statement, it is 
 said, was immediately reported to the emperor, who no sooner heard 
 it than he ordered guards to be placed at the doors of the Fran- 
 ciscan convents at Miako and Osaka, at which latter city, since the 
 earthquake, the emperor had made his residence. Guards were 
 also placed at the houses of the Jesuits ; but in that at Osaka there 
 was only one young priest with two proselytes, and in that at Miako 
 only the aged Father Gnecchi, who soon, through the dexterity of 
 some of his friends, was conveyed out of it unobserved by the guards. 
 There were taken in the convents of the Franciscans three priests, 
 a clerk and two lay brothers, one of them a Spanish Creole of Mex- 
 ico, the other a Portuguese Creole of the East. Indies. A list was 
 also ordered to be taken of the persons who frequented the Fran- 
 ciscan churches at Miako and Osaka. A great many names were 
 originally placed on it, but the governor of Miako, desirous to limit 
 as much as possible the number of victims, finally struck off all but 
 fifteen, who also were put under arrest. 
 
 On the 3d of January, 1597, these twenty-four prisoners were 
 taken to a public square in Miako, where each of them had the tip 
 of his left ear cut off, after which they were placed in carriages and 
 paraded through the streets. A similar ceremony soon after took 
 place in Sakai and Osaka, whence the prisoners were sent to Naga- 
 saki to be executed. At all the towns and cities on the way they 
 were made a spectacle of, as if to terrify those of the same faith. 
 But they exhibited, we are told, great fervor and firmness, making 
 many new converts and inspiring many old ones with the desire of 
 martyrdom. On the way their number was increased to twenty- 
 six by the addition of two others who had greatly busied themselves 
 in ministering to the wants of the prisoners, and who, upon being 
 asked if they were Catholics, replied that they detested the gods 
 of Japan. 
 
 Fortunately for himself, Terezaba, the secretly-converted governor 
 of Nagasaki, had been ordered to Corea, his place being supplied by 
 a pagan brother of his, by whom an edict was issued threatening 
 with death all who should embrace the foreign religion. At the same 
 time he intimated to the Jesuits that he should allow no Japanese 
 
124 JAPAN. — A. D. 1595—1597. 
 
 to enter their church, in that city, nor themselves to traverse the 
 country, as they had done, preaching and baptizing. He exhibited, 
 however, every disposition to be as indulgent as possible in the 
 execution of his orders ; for though the prisoners were denied the 
 privilege of hearing mass, they were permitted, on their way to the 
 place of execution, to stop at the hermitage of St. Lazarus, where 
 the Jesuits confessed to Father Rodriguez and another of their 
 order, who met them there, and the Franciscans to each other. 
 
 The place of execution was not that made use of for ordinary 
 malefactors, but a hill bordering on the sea, one of those by which 
 the city of Nagasaki is surrounded, and thenceforth known among 
 the converts as the Holy Mountain, or Mount of Martyrs, to which 
 name it gained still further claim by becoming the scene of many 
 subsequent executions, continuing also, as long as the new religion 
 lasted in Japan, a place of pilgrimage for its adherents. The 
 prisoners were followed to this hill by an excited crowd, who, with** 
 tears and benedictions, besought their prayers. They were put to 
 death by crucifixion, which, however, according to the Japanese 
 method, is not a lingering punishment. The sufferer is bound, not 
 nailed, to the cross, and his body is immediately pierced by a lance, 
 or sometimes by two lances, thrust in at the sides, and. coming out 
 at the shoulders. 
 
 The earth, wet with the martyrs' precious blood, was sedulously 
 gathered up by the bystanders, and, in spite of the care with which 
 the bodies were guarded, those of the three Jesuits were conveyed 
 away to Macao ; or, at least, bodies alleged to be the same were 
 preserved in the churches there with great veneration as relics. 
 Many miracles were alleged to have attended and followed the 
 death of these martyrs, as to which duly authenticated affidavits 
 may be found recorded in the great collection of Bolandus, afford- 
 ing grounds for the canonization of these twenty-six Japanese pro* 
 to-martyrs, decreed, thirty years after, by Pope Urban VIII. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 NEW EDICT FOB THE DEPORTATION OF THE JESUITS. ITS PARTIAL EVASION. 
 
 NEW CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND JAPAN. TAL- 
 
 KO-SAMA'S JUSTIFICATION OF HIS RECENT PROCEEDINGS. NEW DESTRUC- 
 TION OF CHURCHES IN X1MO. TAIKO-SAMA'S DEATH. HIS PRECEDING 
 
 EFFORTS TO SECURE HIS OWN DEIFICATION AND THE SUCCESSION OF HIS 
 
 INFANT SON FIDO JORI. REGENCY. GE-JAS ITS HEAD, WITH THE TITLE 
 
 OF DAYSU-SAMA. A. D. 1597—1599. 
 
 Even a more serious blow than the execution of the first martyrs, 
 which seems rather to have warmed than to have cooled the zeai 
 of the converted Japanese, was an order from the emperor to the 
 governor of Nagasaki to collect all the missionaries, and to ship 
 them off to China,- except only his interpreter, Rodriguez, and two 
 or three other Jesuits, who might be permitted to remain at Naga- 
 saki for the benefit of the Portuguese traders. 
 
 There were still in Japan as many as a hundred and twenty-five 
 members of the Company, of whom forty-six were priests. To 
 blind the emperor by an apparent submission to his will, it was 
 agreed that the newly arrived bishop of Japan (the fourth 
 appointed to this diocese, but the first who had arrived there) 
 should depart in the same vessel in which he had come, especially 
 as he might improve his absence to represent to the viceroy of 
 the Indies the pressing necessities of his diocese. The novitiate, 
 the college in the island of Amacusa,* and the seminary for young 
 nobles hitherto kept on foot in Arima, were all given up, and most 
 of the fathers connected with them set out for Nagasaki. Of the 
 whole number, however, there remained behind eight in the island 
 
 * The fathers resident at this college had been by no means idle. They had 
 printed there, in 1593, a Japanese grammar, prepared by Father Alvarez, and 
 in L595, in a thick quarto of upwards of nine hundred pages, a Portuguese, 
 Latin and Japanese Lexicon. A vocabulary entirely Japanese was printed 
 at Nagasaki, 1598. See Appendix A. 
 11* 
 
126 JAPAN. — A. D. 1597— 1599. 
 
 of Amakusa, twelve in Arima and Omura, four in Bungo, and as 
 many more in Firando and Gotto, while two others passed into 
 Corea ; but it was understood that these priests thus left behind, 
 while ministering to the faithful, should avoid doing anything that 
 might draw attention upon them. 
 
 The aged Father Gnecchi, with two priests and five or six other 
 Jesuits, remained at Miako, Father Matthew de Couros being ap- 
 pointed to fill the place of Father Louis Froez, lately deceased, in 
 the office of sending to Rome memoirs for the history of Japan. 
 With these exceptions all the rest of the Jesuits assembled at 
 Nagasaki, making a show of getting ready to depart. Indeed, the 
 poop of a Portuguese vessel, which sailed shortly after, appeared to 
 be full of them ; but most of these seeming Jesuits were only Por- 
 tuguese merchants, dressed for the occasion in the habit of the 
 order ; while, to account for the staying behind of any who migho 
 happen to be detected in the provinces, it was given out that some 
 had been left because the vessel was not large enough to take* all. 
 
 Soon after the departure of this vessel, a Spanish gentleman 
 arrived from Manilla with presents and a letter to the emperor from 
 a new governor of the Philippines, remonstrating, though in meas- 
 ured terms, against the confiscation of the San Philip and the 
 execution of the Spanish ecclesiastics, several of whom had entered 
 Japan in the character of envoys from his predecessor. The letter 
 requested the bodies of those martyrs, and, for the future, safety 
 and kind treatment to all Spanish vessels driven accidentally 
 to Japan. Taiko-Sama, in reply, justified his proceedings against 
 the missionaries, not only because they had disregarded his re- 
 peated orders to leave Japan, but because, insinuating their creed 
 into the minds of his subjects, they designed finally to get possession 
 of the country as the Spaniards had done of Manilla. His 
 excuse for the confiscation of the San Philip was that she had 
 attempted to enter a port of Japan in violation of law. He refused 
 to give up any part of her cargo, but offered to restore a number 
 of slaves which had belonged to her, at the same time expressing a 
 willingness to consent to a regulated trade with the Spaniards, pro- 
 vided thsy would promise to bring no priests. 
 
 A report that the emperor was about to visit Nagasaki led to the 
 destruction in the adjoining provinces of not less than a hundred 
 
THE REGENT GE-JAS. 127 
 
 and thirty-seven churches and of many houses which had belonged 
 to the Jesuits ; and, to appease the authorities, a new embarcation 
 of missionaries became necessary, limited, however, by reason of the 
 smallness of the vessel, to eleven persons. 
 
 Li the midst of these alarms news arrived that the emperor had 
 been seized with a sudden and violent sickness, apparently a dysen- 
 tery, which, after two months' struggles against it, brought him to 
 his end. He died in September, 1598, at the age of sixty-four, 
 retaining his absolute authority to the last. During his latter years 
 two thoughts seem principally to have engrossed him, — the secur- 
 ing divine honors to himself, and the transmission of his authority 
 to his infant son, Fide Jori, not yet above three or four years old. 
 With the first object in view, though really (at least, so the mission- 
 aries concluded) without any religion at all, he had rebuilt, in a 
 magnificent manner, many temples and Buddhist monasteries de- 
 stroyed by Nobunanga, by himself, or by the accidents of war. He 
 also had erected, in a new quarter which he had added to Miako, a 
 splendid temple, which he caused to be consecrated to himself in 
 the character of the new Fuchiman, that being the title of a Kami 
 celebrated for his conquests, and regarded as the god of war. 
 
 To secure the succession of his infant son, the expiring emperor 
 established, on his death-bed, a council of regency, composed of 
 nine persons, at the head of which he placed Ge-jas or Giazu, king 
 of the Bandova, which, besides the five provinces of the Quanto, 
 in which were the great cities of Seruga and Jedo, embraced, also, 
 three other kingdoms. Ge-jas had been king of Micava, a mere 
 westerly province, which he had lost by adhering to the fortunes of 
 the third son of Nobunanga, he being allied to that family by mar 
 riage. But afterwards, by some means, he had recovered the favo* 
 of Taiko-Sama, who had even bestowed upon him the newly-con- 
 quered Bandova, and who, the better to secure his fidelity, had 
 caused his infant son and destined successor to be married to a 
 young grand-daughter of Gre-jas. 
 
 The strong castle of Osaka had been chosen by/ Taiko-Sama as 
 the residence of his son during his minority, and there he dwelt 
 with his baby wife, in charge of his mother, while the administration 
 of affairs passed into the hands of Gc-jas, who, as head of the 
 regency, governed with the title of Daysu-Sama. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 EVACUATION OP COREA. — RETURN OP THE CONVERTED PRINCES. FAVOR* 
 
 ABLE DISPOSITION OF DAYSU-SAMA. THIRD VISIT OF FATHER VALIGNANL, 
 
 CIVIL WAR BETWEEN DAYSU-SAMA AND HIS CO-REGENTS. — HIS TRI- 
 UMPH. DISGRACE AND EXECUTION OF TSUKAMIDONO. DAYSU-SAMA TAKES 
 
 THE TITLE OF OGOSHO-SAMA, AND STILL FAVORS THE CONVERTS. INFLUX 
 
 OF DOMINICAN AND FRANCISCAN FRIARS. FLOURISHING CONDITION OP 
 
 THE CHCRCH. LOCAL PERSECUTIONS. A. D. 1599—1609. 
 
 The first act of the regency was to put an end to the war in 
 Corea. That country was abandoned * and the return of so many 
 converted princes greatly strengthened the lately suffering church. 
 Father Rodriguez had always been on good terms with Daysu-Sama, 
 with whom he had become acquainted at the court of the late em- 
 peror. This head of the regency was even thought to be well dis- 
 posed to the new religion, and the converted princes, in conjunction 
 with Father Valignani, who, just before the death of Taiko-Sama, 
 had reached Japan for the third time, in company with a new 
 bishop, proceeded gradually and unostentatiously to reestablish the 
 missionaries, to rebuild the churches, and to set up again the college 
 and seminaries, till soon the Catholic faith seemed to be replaced 
 on almost as firm a basis as ever. For a time, indeed, things were 
 thrown into confusion by a civil war which soon broke out between 
 Daysu-Sama and his co-regents. Some of the Catholic princes lost 
 their provinces as adherents of the defeated party, and among the 
 rest, that distinguished pillar of the church, Tsukamidono, the grand 
 admiral, king of Fingo and conqueror of Corea, who, for his share 
 in this business, perished by the hand of the executioner, — his 
 
 * Yet the Japanese are said to maintain to this day a garrison on the eoast 
 (Golownin, vol. in., ch. 9), and to receive tribute from Corea ; but thia 
 peems doubtful. 
 
FRIARS FROM THE PHILIPPINES. 129 
 
 religious opinions not allowing him to adopt the Japanese alterna- 
 tive of cutting himself open. But the victorious regent, who pres- 
 ently took the title of Ogosho-Sama, and with it the entire imperial 
 authority (though the boy, Fide Jori, still enjoyed the title of 
 Kubo-Sama), showed himself so far favorable to the Jesuits (to 
 the headship of whom Father Francis Pazio had lately succeeded 
 as vice-provincial), as to permit their reestablishment at Nagasaki, 
 Miako and Osaka. Yet an edict of his, restraining the missionaries 
 to their ancienUseats, and forbidding the accession of new converts, 
 though little regarded, showed the necessity of caution. 
 
 Pope Clement VII. having promulgated a bull in December, 
 1600, by which all the mendicant orders were allowed to go as mis- 
 sionaries to Japan, provided they proceeded by way of Portugal, 
 and not by the Philippines, Dominican and Franciscan friars 
 took advantage of this favorable disposition of the emperor to enter 
 that empire, the Franciscans reoccupying their old station at Miako, 
 and setting up a new one at Jedo, where the Jesuits had never 
 been. This was the seat of the emperor's son, whom, according to 
 the Japanese custom, he had associated with him in the empire 
 He himself had his residence at Seruga, no great distance to the 
 west. The young Fide Jori, the titular Kubo-Sama, still dwelt in 
 the castle of Osaka, Miako being given up exclusively to the Dairi, 
 or ecclesiastical emperor. The prohibition to pass from the Philip- 
 pines to Japan was little regarded. As there was no civil arm' to 
 enforce it, the friars laughed at the excommunication denounced by 
 the Pope's bull. The Jesuits, on the other hand, did not submit to 
 this invasion without loud complaints. 
 
 In the Tensa, or five provinces nearest to Miako, and including, 
 also, the cities of Sakai and Osaka, the ancient imperial domain, 
 the adherents of the new religion were seldom molested, and the 
 governor of Miako even built a magnificent church for the Jesuits 
 in the upper city, in addition to one which they already possessed in 
 the lower city. An observatory at Osaka had gained additional 
 credit for their religion by displaying their scientific knowledge. A 
 seminary for nobles was reopened at Nagasaki, and, by the special 
 zeal of Father Gnecchi, hospitals for lepers, which had been from 
 the first a favorite charity, were set up at Osaka and in several 
 other cities. By the favor of particular princes, Jesuit mission- 
 
130 JAPAN. — A. D. 1599-1609. 
 
 aries even penetrated into the more remote and hitherto unvisited 
 provinces. Persecution, however, still went on within the jurisdic- 
 tion of several of the local rulers, especially in the island of Ximo ; 
 and some of the converted princes, having apostatized, became them- 
 selves persecutors. But the bishop, having made a journey to Miako 
 in 1806, was very favorably received by the Kubo-Sama — a circum- 
 stance not without its influence in all the local courts. 
 
 Such was the state of things in Japan when the hold of the 
 Portuguese and the Jesuits upon that country, already shaken 
 by the consolidation of the empire under one head, and by the 
 intrusion of Dominican and Franciscan friars and Spanish mer- 
 chants and negotiators, encountered a still more alarming disturb- 
 ance from the appearance of the Dutch flag in the eastern seas.* 
 
 * Father Valignani died in 1606, at Macao, whither he had gone to look 
 after the Chinese missions, a few Jesuits having at length got admission into 
 that empire. Father Rodriguez, in his annual letter of 1606, from Miako, in 
 noticing Valignani's death, speaks of him as justly entitled to be called the 
 apostle of the missions of Japan and China, — a title, indeed, which he had 
 already received from the king of Portugal. Purchas, who published a few 
 years later, mentions "him as the "great Jesuit." He enjoyed in his own 
 day, and deservedly, a reputation quite equal to that of our most famous 
 modern missionaries ; but these missionary reputations are apt not to be 
 very long-lived. Five of his letters are in the collection of Hay, Be Rebut 
 Japonicis, &c. 
 
 The death of Father Louis Froez has been mentioned in the previous chapter. 
 We have of his letters, in Maffei's Select Epistles, nine, written between the 
 years 1563 and 1573 ; and in Hay's collection eight, written between 1577 
 and 1596. Many of these are of great length. That of February, 1565, con- 
 tains a curious account of what he saw at Miako, on his going thither with 
 Almeida to aid Vilela, who had labored there alone for six years .with only 
 Japanese assistants. The translation of it in Hackluyt has an important pas- 
 sage in the beginning, giving a general account of the Japanese, not in the 
 Latin editions that I have seen. Those in Hay's collection are rather reports 
 than letters. That of 1586 contains an account of Valignani's first interview 
 with Taiko-Sama, that of 1592 a full account of Valignani's embassy, the 
 second of 1595 the history of Taiko-Sama's quarrel with his nephew, and 
 the two of 1596 a full account of the first martyrdoms, and of the state of the 
 church at the time. 
 
 Almeida had died in 1583, after a missionary life of twenty-eight years. 
 We have five of his letters, which show him a good man, but exceedingly 
 credulous, even for a Portuguese Jesuit. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ATTEMPT OF THE ENGLISH AND DUTCH TO DISCOVER A NEW ROUTE TO THE 
 
 FAR EAST. VOYAGES ROUND THE WORLD. ATTEMPTED ENGLISH VOYAGE 
 
 TO JAPAN. — ENGLISH AND DUTCH VOYAGES TO INDIA. — FIRST DUTCH 
 
 VOYAGE TO JAPAN. ADAMS, THE ENGLISH PILOT. HIS ADVENTURES 
 
 AND DETENTION IN JAPAN.* A. D. 1513—1607. 
 
 For a fall century subsequent to the discovery of the passage to 
 India by the Cape of Good Hope, the commerce of the Indian seas, 
 so far as Europe was concerned, remained almost a complete mo- 
 nopoly in the hands of the Portuguese. The ancient Venetian com- 
 merce with India, by the Red Sea, had been speedily brought to an 
 end, while the trade carried on over land, by way of Aleppo and the 
 Persian Gulf, was mainly controlled by the Portuguese, who held 
 possession of Ormus, through which it mostly passed. Nor did the 
 Spanish discovery of another passage to India, by the Straits of 
 Magellan, and the lodgment which the Spaniards made about the 
 year 1570, in the Philippine Islands, very materially interfere with 
 the Portuguese monopoly. The passage by the Straits of Magellan 
 was seldom or never attempted, the Spanish trade being confined to 
 two annual ships- between Acapulco and Manilla. 
 
 It was the desire to share in this East India commerce (which 
 made Lisbon the wealthiest and most populous city of Europe), that 
 led to so many attempts to discover a north-eastern, a north-western 
 and even a northern passage to India (directly "over the pole), not 
 only as shorter, but as avoiding any collision with the Portuguese 
 and Spanish, who did not hesitate to maintain by force their respec- 
 tive exclusive claims to the passages by the Cape of Good Hope 
 
 * This chapter, also the twenty-second, is taken, with alterations and 
 additions, from an article (written by the compiler of this work) in Har 
 pcr's Magazine for Jan., 1854. 
 
132 JAPAN. — A. D. 1598-1607. 
 
 and the Straits of Magellan. These attempts were at first confined 
 to the English, beginning with that made by Sebastian Cabot, on 
 his third and last voyage from England. The Dutch ' and Belgi- 
 ans were long content to buy Indian merchandise at Lisbon, 
 which they resold in the north of Europe ; but after the union of 
 the Spanish and Portuguese dominions, in 1580, and the seizure, 
 which soon followed, of the Dutch ships at Lisbon, and their exclu- 
 sion from any trade with Portugal, the Dutch began to entertain, 
 even more ardently than the English, the desire of a direct com- 
 merce with the far East. Drake, in his voyage round the world 
 (1577-80), outward by the Straits of Magellan, and homeward by 
 the Cape of Good Hope, a track in which he was speedily followed 
 by Cavendish (1586-8), led the way to the Indian seas; but the 
 failure of Cavendish in a second attempt to pass the Straits of Ma- 
 gellan, and the capture, a. d. 1594, by Spanish- American cruisers 
 in the Pacific, of Sir Richard Hawkins, a son of the famous Sir 
 John Hawkins, who had attempted a voyage to Japan by the same 
 route, served to keep up the terrors of that passage. 
 
 Meanwhile, Captain Lancaster, as early as 1592, accomplished 
 the first English voyage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. After 
 a rather disastrous voyage, he returned in 1594, having been greatly 
 delayed by his ignorance of the monsoons. A second expedition, des- 
 tined for China, sailed in 1596, but perished miserably at sea. It is 
 to the Dutch that the credit mainly belongs of first breaking in upon 
 the Portuguese and Spanish monopoly of Indian commerce. # 
 
 Among other Dutch ship captains and merchants who had been 
 thrown into prison at Lisbon, was Cornelius Houtman, who im 
 proved that opportunity to acquire, by conversation with Portu 
 guese seamen, a knowledge of the Indian seas ; and it was by his 
 persuasions that the merchants of Amsterdam, associating as an 
 East India Company, fitted out, in 1695, eight vessels, — four to 
 renew the experiment of a north-eastern passage, and four to pro- 
 ceed to India by the Cape of Good Hope. The voyage of the first 
 four, under the direction of Hugh Linschooten, # who had lately 
 returned from Goa, where he had resided six years in the service of 
 the archbishop, resulted in the discovery of Nova Zembla, beyond 
 
 * See Appendix, note E. 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH VOYAGES TO THE EAST. 133 
 
 which, neither this expedition nor two subsequent ones were able 
 to proceed. The four other ships, under the charge of Houtman, 
 reached the west coast of Java, and, in spite of the arts and 
 opposition of the Portuguese, whom they found established at Ban- 
 tam, in that island, they opened a trade with the natives, not with- 
 out an occasional . intermixture of hostilities, in which they lost 
 more than half their numbers, besides being obliged to abandon and 
 burn one of their vessels. The other three ships returned to Hol- 
 land in 1598. This voyage had not been profitable; yet the actual 
 commencement of the long desired Indian trafiic greatly stimulated 
 the hopes of the merchants, and that same year not less than four 
 distinct India squadrons were fitted out — one of two vessels, under 
 Houtman ; another, under Jacques Mahay, of five vessels, known 
 as Yerhagen's fleet, from the chief promoter of the enterprise ; a 
 third, of three vessels, under Oliver Noort ; and a fourth, of not 
 less than eight vessels, set forth by a new East India association, 
 including not only the merchants pf Amsterdam, but those of the 
 other cities of the province of Holland, rudiment of the afterwards 
 so celebrated Dutch East India Company. The first and last of 
 these expeditions proceeded by the Cape of Good Hope. The other 
 two were to attempt the passage by the Straits of Magellan. 
 
 The Dutch, merchants were at this time much richer than those 
 of England, and for these enterprises of theirs to India they ob- 
 tained the assistance of quite a number of adventurous Englishmen. 
 Houtman had an English pilot, named Davis ; Noort carried, in the 
 same capacity, Thomas Melis, who had made the voyage round the 
 world with Cavendish. The fleet of Mahay had two English pilots, 
 William Adams and Timothy Shotten, with the former of whom, as 
 being the first Englishman who ever reached Japan, and long a res- 
 ident there, our narrative has chiefly to do. 
 
 Born, according to his own account, on the banks of the Med- 
 way, between Rochester and Chatham, Adams, at the age of twelve, 
 had commenced a seafaring life, apprentice to Master Nicholas Dig- 
 gins, of Limehouse, near London, whom he served for twelve years 
 He acted afterward as master and pilot in her majesty's (Queen 
 Elizabeth's) ships. Then, for eleven or twelve years, he was em 
 ployed by the worshipful company of the Barbary merchants. The 
 Dutch traffic with Iudia beginning, desirous, as he tells us, " to 
 12 
 
134 JAPAN. — A. D. 1513—1607. 
 
 make a little experience of the small knowledge which God ha-d 
 given him," he was induced to enter that service. 
 
 Mahay's squadron, in which Adams sailed as chief pilot, con- 
 sisted of the Hope, of two hundred and fifty tons and one hundred 
 and thirty men, the Faith, of one hundred and fifty tons and one 
 hundred and nine men, the Charity, of one hundred and sixty tons 
 and one hundred and ten men, the Fidelity, of one hundred tons 
 and eighty-six men, and the Good News, of seventy-five tons and 
 fifty-six men ; but these names of good omen did not save these 
 small and over-crowded vessels from a succession of disasters, too 
 common in the maritime enterprises of those days. They left the 
 Texel the 24th of June, and on the 21st of August reached the 
 Cape Yerde Islands, where they remained twenty-one days to re- 
 fresh the men, of whom many were sick with scurvy, including 
 Mahay, their chief commander, who died soon after they had re- 
 commenced their voyage. Encountering contrary winds and heavy 
 rains, they were forced to the coast of Guinea, and landed on Cape 
 Gonsalves, just south of the line. The sick were set on shore, and 
 soon after, a French sailor came aboard, who promised to do them 
 all favor with the negro king. The country could furnish very few 
 supplies ; and as the sick recovered from the scurvy, those hitherto 
 well began to suffer from fever. 
 
 In this state of distress they set sail for the coast of Brazil ; but 
 falling in soon after with the island of Annabon, in the Gulf of 
 Guinea, they landed, took the town, which contained eighty houses, 
 and obtained a supply of oxen, and of oranges and other fruits ; 
 but still the men continued to die, of whom they buried more than 
 thirty on this island. 
 
 Two months were thus spent on the African coast. The ships, 
 setting sail again about the middle of November, were greatly 
 delayed by one of the vessels losing her mainmast, and it was five 
 months before they reached the Straits of Magellan, the crews 
 during most of that time on short allowance, and driven to 
 such extremity as to eat the calf-skins with which the ropes were 
 covered. 
 
 Having entered the straits the beginning of April, 1599, they 
 obtained a good supply of penguins for food ; but the commander 
 stopping to wood and water, they were overtaken by the winter 
 
FIRST DUTCH VOYAGE TO THE PACIFIC. 135 
 
 then just setting in, during which they lost more than a hundred 
 men by cold and hunger, ana 1 were thus detained — though, accord- 
 ing to Adams, there were many times when they might have gone 
 through — till the 24th of September, when at last they entered the 
 South Sea. 
 
 A few days after, they encountered a violent storm, by which the 
 ships were separated. Capt. Wert, with the Faith and Fidelity, was 
 driven back into the straits, where he fell in with Oliver Noort, who 
 had left Holland a few days after the Verhagen fleet, had followed 
 in the same track, had encountered many of the same difficulties, but 
 who, more fortunate, not only passed the strait, but succeeded in com- 
 pleting the fourth circumnavigation of the globe, — a feat accom- 
 plished before his voyage only by the ships of Magellan, Drake and 
 Cavendish. As Noort was unable to afford him any aid, Wert aban- 
 doned the enterprise, and returned with his two ships to Holland. 
 
 The other three ships steered separately for the coast of .Chili, 
 where a rendezvous, in the latitude of forty-six degrees, had been 
 appointed. The Charity, in which Adams was, on reaching the 
 place of rendezvous, found some Indian inhabitants, who at first 
 furnished sheep in exchange for bells and knives, with which they 
 seemed well satisfied, but who shortly after disappeared, probably 
 through Spanish influence. Having waited twenty-eight days, and 
 hearing nothing of her consorts, the Charity ran by Valdivia to 
 the island of Mocha, and thence toward the neighboring island of 
 Santa Maria. Seeing on the main land near by a number of peo- 
 ple, boats were sent for a parley ; but the people would suffer 
 none to land from the boats, at which they shot a multitude of 
 arrows. " Nevertheless," says Adams, " having no victuals in our 
 ship, and hoping to find refreshing, we forcibly landed some seven- 
 and-twenty or thirty of our men, and drove the wild people from 
 the water-side, having the most of our men hurt with their arrows. 
 Having landed, we made signs of friendship, and in the end came 
 to parley, with signs that our desire was to have victuals for iron, 
 silver and cloth, which we showed them. Whereupon they gave 
 our folks wine, with batatas (sweet potatoes), and other fruits, and 
 bade them, by signs and tokens, to go aboard, and the next day to 
 •3ome again, and they would bring us victuals." 
 
 The ucxt day, after a council, in which it was resolved not tc 
 
186 JAPAN. — A. D. 1513—1607. 
 
 land more than two or three men at once, the captain approached 
 the shore with all the force he had. Great numbers of people were 
 Been, who made signs for the boats to land ; and in the end, as the 
 people would not come near the boats, twenty-three men landed 
 with muskets, and marched up toward four or five houses ; but 
 before they had gone the distance of a musket-shot, they found 
 themselves in an ambush, and the whole, including Thomas Adams, 
 a brother of William, the chief pilot, were slain or taken. " So our 
 boats waited long," says Adams, " to see if any of them would come 
 again ; but seeing no hope to recover them, our boats returned, 
 with this sorrowful news, that all our men that landed were slain, 
 which was a lamentable thing to hear, for we had scarce so many 
 men left as could wind up our anchor." 
 
 After waiting a day longer, they went over to the neighboring 
 island of Santa Maria, where they found the Hope, which had just 
 arrived, but in as great distress as themselves, having, at the island 
 of Mocha, the day before the Charity had passed there, lost their 
 commander and twenty-seven men in an attempt to land to obtain 
 provisions. Some provisions were finally got, by detaining two 
 Spaniards, who came to visit the ships, and requiring them to pay a 
 ransom in sheep and oxen. It was proposed to burn one of the 
 ships, as there were not men enough for both ; but the new captains, 
 of whom the one in command of the Charity was named Quacker- 
 nack, could not agree which of the ships to burn. 
 
 At length, the men 1 being somewhat refreshed, a council was 
 called to consider what should be done to make the voyage as 
 profitable as possible to the merchants. It was stated by one of 
 the sailors, who had been to Japan in a Portuguese ship, that wool- 
 len cloth, of which they had much on board, was good merchandise 
 there ; and considering that the Moluccas, and most parts of the 
 East Indies, were not countries in which woollen cloths would be 
 likely to be very acceptable ; hearing also from the people on shore 
 that Spanish cruisers were after them, — by whom, in fact, their 
 third vessel was captured, news of their intentions and force having 
 been sent from Spain to Peru about the time of their departure from 
 Holland, — it was finally resolved to stand away for Japan. Leav-- 
 ing the coast of Chili on the 27th of November, and standing north- 
 westerly across the equator for three or four months, they had the 
 
RESOLUTION TO SAIL FOR JAPAN. 137 
 
 trade-wind and pleasant weather. In their way, they encountered 
 a group of islands somewhere about 16 degrees of north latitude 
 (perhaps the Sandwich Islands), to which eight of their men ran 
 off with the pinnace, and were eaten, as was supposed, by the 
 islanders, who, by the report of one who was taken, were cannibals. 
 
 In the latitude of 27 degrees- north, the vessels, encountering vari- 
 able winds and stormy weather, were separated. The Hope was 
 never more heard of ; the Charity still kept on her course, though 
 with many of her men sick, and others dead : when, on the 11th 
 of April, being then in great misery, with only four or five men, 
 out of a company of foiir-and-twenty, able to walk, and as many 
 more to creep on their knees, the whole expecting shortly to die, at 
 last they made the hoped-for land — which proved to be the eastern 
 coast of Ximo. They were immediately boarded by numerous 
 boats, which they had no force to resist ; but the boatmen offered 
 no injury beyond stealing what they could conveniently lay their 
 hands on. This, however, was put a stop to the next day by the 
 governor of the neighboring district, who sent soldiers on board to 
 protect the cargo, and who treated the crew with great kindness, 
 furnishing them with all necessary refreshments, and giving them a 
 house on shore for their sick, of whom nine finally died. 
 
 For some days the only conversation was by signs ; but, before 
 long, a Portuguese Jesuit, with some other Portuguese, arrived 
 from Nagasaki, on the opposite western coast of the island. 
 
 The Dutch now had an interpreter ; but, what with religious and 
 what with national antipathies, little was to be hoped from a Jesuit 
 and a Portuguese. In fact, the Portuguese accused them of being 
 pirates, and two of their own company, in hopes to get control of 
 the cargo, turned traitors, and plotted with the Portuguese. After 
 nine days the emperor sent five galleys, in which Adams, attended 
 by one of the sailors, was conveyed to Osaka, distant about eighty 
 leagues. Here he found the emperor, " in a wonderful costly house, 
 gilded with gold in abundance," who, in several interviews, treated 
 him with great kindness, and was very inquisitive as to his country 
 and the cause of his coming. Adams replied that the English were 
 a people who had long sought out the East Indies, desiring friend- 
 ship, in the way of trade, with all kings and potentates, and having 
 in their country divers commodities which might be exchanged ta 
 12* 
 
138 JAPAN. — A. D. 1598—1607. 
 
 mutual advantage. The emperor then inquired if the people of 
 Adams' country had no wars. He answered that they had with the 
 Spanish and Portuguese, but were at peace with all other nations. 
 He also inquired as to Adams' religious opinions, and the way in 
 which he got to Japan ; but when Adams, by way of answer, ex- 
 hibited a chart of the world, and pointed out the passage through 
 the Straits of Magellan, he showed plain signs of incredulity. 
 
 Notwithstanding this friendly reception, Adams was ordered back 
 to prison, where he was kept for nine-and-thirty days, expecting, 
 though well treated, to be crucified, which he learnt was the custom- 
 ary mode of execution in that country. 
 
 In fact, as he afterwards discovered, the Portuguese were em- 
 ploying this interval in poisoning the minds of the natives against 
 these new-comers, whom they represented as thieves and common 
 sea-robbers, whom it was necessary to put to death to prevent any 
 more of their freebooting countrymen from coming, to the ruin of 
 the Japanese trade. But at length the emperor gave this answer : 
 that, as these strangers had as yet done no damage to him nor to 
 any of his people, it would be against reason and justice to put 
 them to death ; and, sending again for Adams, after another long 
 conversation and numerous inquiries, he set him at liberty, and gave 
 him leave to visit the ship and his companions, of whom, in the 
 interval, he had heard nothing. He found them close by, the ship 
 having in the interval been brought to Sakai, within seven or eight 
 miles of Osaka. The men had suffered nothing, but the ship had 
 been completely stripped, her whole company being thus left with 
 only the clothes on their backs. The emperor, indeed, ordered 
 restitution ; but the plundered articles were so dispersed and con- 
 cealed that nothing could be recovered, except fifty thousand rials 
 in silver (five thousand dollars), which had formed a part of the 
 cargo, and which was given up to the officers as a fund for their 
 support and that of the men. Afterward the ship was taken still 
 eastward to a port near Jedo. All means were used to get her clear, 
 with leave to depart, in which suit a considerable part of the money 
 was spent ; till, at the end of two years, the men refusing any longer 
 to obey Adams and the master, the remaining money was, " for 
 quietness' sake," divided, and each was left to shift for himself. 
 T\ie emperor, however, added an allowance to each man o^ twc 
 
ADAMS AND HIS COMPANIONS. 139 
 
 pounds of rice a day, besides an annual pension in money amount- 
 ing to about twenty-four dollars. In Adams' case this pension was 
 afterward raised to one hundred and forty dollars, as a reward for 
 having built two ships for the emperor on the European model. 
 Adams' knowledge of mathematics also proved serviceable to him, 
 and he was soon in such favor as to be able, according to his own 
 account, to return good for evil to several of his former maligners. 
 The emperor acknowledged his services, and endeavored to content 
 him by giving him " a living like unto a lordship in England, with 
 eighty or ninety husbandmen as his servants and slaves ;" but he 
 still pined for home, and importuned for leave to depart, desiring, 
 as he says, " to see his poor wife and" children, according to con- 
 science and nature." This suit he again renewed, upon hearing 
 from some Japanese traders that Dutch merchants had established 
 themselves at Acheen in Sumatra, and Patania on the east coast of 
 Malacca. He promised to bring both the Dutch and English to 
 trade in Japan ; but all he could obtain was leave for the Dutch 
 captain and another Dutchman to depart. This they presently did, 
 for Patania, in a Japanese junk, furnished by the king or prince of 
 Firando, whence they proceeded to Jor, at the southern end of the 
 peninsula of Malacca, where they found a Dutch fleet of nine sail. 
 In this fleet the Dutch captain obtained an appointment as master, 
 but was soon after killed in a sea-fight with the Portuguese, with 
 whom the Dutch were, by this time, vigorously and successfully 
 contending for the mastership of the eastern seas.* 
 
 * An account of Adams' voyage in two letters of his from Japan, may be 
 found in Purchas His Pilgrimes, part I., book in., sect. 5. Purchas also 
 gives, book n., chap, v., Captain Wert's adventures and return ; and in 
 book in., chap, i., sect. 4, a narrative by Davis, who acted as chief pilot of 
 the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, under Houtman. Hackluyt gives, 
 in his second volume, a narrative of Lancaster's voyage, taken down from the 
 mouth of Edmund Baker, Lancaster's lieutenant. Henry May's narrative 
 of the same voyage is given in Hackluyt's second volume. What is known of 
 the English expedition fitted out in 1594, will be found in Hackluyt, vol. 
 iv., and Pilgrimes, book in., chap, i., sect. 2. The English East India Com- 
 pany was formed in 1600, and Lancaster was immediately despatched on a 
 second voyage " with four tall ships and a victualler," and by him the Eng- 
 lish trade was commenced. — Pilgrimes, book in., chap. iii.. sect. 1. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SPANISH FRIARS IN JAPAN. — EXTENSION OF JAPANESE TRADE. — PROGRESS 
 OF THE DUTCH IN THE EASTERN SEAS. — THEY OPEN A TRADE WITH JAPAN. 
 
 EMPEROR'S LETTER. SHIPWRECK OF DON RODRIGO DE VIVERO ON THE 
 
 JAPANESE COAST. HIS RECEPTION, OBSERVATIONS AND DEPARTURE. — 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF A PORTUGUESE CARAC BY THE JAPANESE. ANOTHER 
 
 DUTCH SHIP ARRIVES. SPEX'S CHARTER. EMBASSIES FROM MACAO AND 
 
 NEW SPAIN. FATHER LOUIS SOTELO AND HIS PROJECTS. A. D. 1607— 1618. 
 
 The Dutch and English, though they had not yet reached Japan, 
 were already, especially the Butch, making great progress in the 
 Indian seas ; but it was not by them alone that the Portuguese 
 monopoly of Japanese commerce and Japanese conversion was 
 threatened. 
 
 Taking advantage of the Bull of Clement VII., already referred to, 
 a multitude of Spanish friars from Manilla poured into Japan, whose 
 first and chief business it was, according to the Jesuit letter-writers 
 and historians, to declaim with vehemence against the conduct of the 
 fathers of the Company, whom they represented as altogether too 
 circumspect, reserved and timid, in the publication of the Gospel. 
 The fanaticism of these Spanish friars was excessive, in illustration of 
 which the Jesuit historians relate, with malicious satisfaction, the fol- 
 lowing story : One of them, in a dispute with one of the shipwrecked 
 Hollanders of Adams' company (perhaps with Adams himself), to 
 sustain the authority of the Catholic church, appealed to its miracu- 
 lous power, and when this obstinate Dutch heretic questioned the 
 reality of any such power, and challenged an exhibition of it, the 
 fanatical missionary undertook to convince him by walking himself 
 on the sea. A day was appointed for the miracle. The Spaniard 
 prepared himself by confession, prayer and fasting. A crowd of 
 Japanese assembled to see it, and the friar, after a confident ex- 
 hortation to the multitude, stepped, crucifix in hand, into the water j . 
 
THE SPANIARDS OF MANILLA. 141 
 
 certain of being buoyed up by faith and providence. But lie was 
 soon floundering over his head, and was only saved from drowning 
 by some boats sent to his assistance ; nor did this experiment add 
 much either to the faith of the Dutchman, or to the docility of the 
 Japanese. About the same time, also, the institution of parish 
 priests was introduced ; but this, like the admission of friars, led 
 only to new disputes and collisions. 
 
 The merchants of Manilla, no less than the monks, still looked 
 with longing eyes in the direction of Japan, anxious to share in its 
 commerce ; and Don Rodrigo de Yivero, upon his accession to that 
 government, by way of conciliation, discharged from confinement 
 and sent home some two hundred Japanese, whom he found impris- 
 oned there, either by way of retaliation for the confiscation of the 
 San Philip and the execution of the Spanish missionaries, Or for 
 some other cause. 
 
 Besides these European rivals, a dangerous competition in the way 
 of trade seems to have been threatened on the part of the Japanese 
 themselves, who appear to have been much more adventurous at 
 this time, whether in point of navigation or the visiting of foreiga 
 countries, than the present jealous policy of their government per- 
 mits. Japanese vessels frequented Manilla for the purchase of rich 
 China silks, which formed the chief article of export from Macao 
 to Japan, the policy of China and the relations of Japan towards 
 her not allowing a direct trade. Japanese vessels appeared even 
 in the Pacific Spanish American ports. It is to this period that 
 the Japanese ascribe the conquest by the king of Saxuma of the 
 Lew Chew Islands ; and Macao, Siam and Annam are enumerated, 
 on Japanese authority, as additional places to which Japanese 
 vessels traded.* 
 
 The Portuguese seem, on the other hand, to have had little left 
 of that courage and spirit by which their forefathers of the pre- 
 ceding century had been so distinguished. The Dutch cruisers in 
 the East Indies proved a great annoyance to them. In 1603, they 
 blockaded Goa, and the same year Hemkirk took the carac of 
 Macao, a prize of fourteen hundred tons, and valued, with her 
 
 * See Klaproth's translation (Nov. Journal Asiatique, torn. 11.) of a curi- 
 ous Japanese tract, on the "Wealth of Japan, written in 1708. 
 
142 JAPAN. — A. D. 1607—1618. 
 
 cargo, at several millions of florins. When the Dutch, under 
 Ma'telief, attacked Malacca, in 1606, the Portuguese were greatly 
 indebted to a small body of Japanese, who formed a part of the 
 garrison, for their success in repelling the assault. On the other 
 hand, in 1608, a large number of Japanese, obliged to winter at 
 Macao, got into collision with the Portuguese authorities of that 
 city, who suspected them of a design to seize the place, and who, in 
 consequence, put a number of them to death. During this and the 
 two preceding years the annual Portuguese carac had been pre- 
 vented from sailing from Macao by fear of Dutch cruisers ; and, 
 with the effect of this interruption of intercourse and of the bad 
 feeling produced by the collision at Macao, still other circumstances 
 cooperated to endanger the Portuguese ascendency. 
 
 The first was the arrival at Firando, in July, 1609, of the Dutch 
 vessel, the Red Lion, attended by the yacht Griffon. They 
 belonged to the fleet of Verhceven, who had left Holland De- 
 cember 12th, 1607, with thirteen ships (of which several were of 
 a thousand tons burden), nineteen hundred men, and three hun- 
 dred and seventy-seven pieces of artillery. The Portuguese fleet, 
 f mch sailed, about the same time, from Lisbon, to take out a new 
 viceroy to Groa, was composed of eight great caracs and six galleons. 
 This fleet was scattered by a storm off the Canaries, and one of the 
 galleons, mounting ten cannon, and with one hundred and eighty men, 
 fell into Verhoeven's hands. He had previously made an unsuccess- 
 ful attack on Mozambique, but had taken, however, in the harbor 
 a carac, mounting thirty-four guns, and loaded with merchandise. 
 Off Groa another carac was burnt by the Portuguese, to prevent its 
 falling into the hands of the Dutch, who proceeded to Calicut, where 
 a treaty of alliance against the Portuguese was entered into with the 
 king. The Dutch then proceeded by Cochin to Johor, on the penin- 
 sula of Malacca (whence the two ships were despatched to Japan), 
 and finally to Bantam and the Moluccas, where the Dutch expected 
 that a truce with Spain, announced by a ship late from Holland, 
 would enable them to devote all their strength to guard against the 
 English, who were also aiming at an establishment in those islands. 
 
 The ships detached from Johor, equally equipped for trading and 
 for fighting, as were all the Indiamen of that period, having missed, 
 by feeing a few days too late, the carac of Macao, proceeded to carry 
 
DUTCH INTERCOURSE COMMENCES. 143 
 
 out their instructions for opening a commercial intercourse with 
 Japan. They were very kindly received at Eirando, whence they 
 5ent a deputation to the emperor's court, witn presents, in the name 
 of the Stadtholder, and were successful in obtaining leave to estab- 
 lish a factory at Firando, for the supply of which with goods the 
 Dutch were to send a ship or two yearly. The Red Lion, arriving 
 in the Texel, July, 1610, carried back the following letter : 
 
 THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN TO THE KING OP HOLLAND. 
 
 " I, emperor and king of Japan, wish to the king of Holland [prince of 
 Orange] who hath sent from so far countries to visit me, greeting. 
 
 " I rejoice greatly in your writing and sending unto me, and wish that our 
 countries were nearer the one to the other, whereby we might continue and 
 increase the friendship begun betwixt us, through your presence, whom I 
 imagine in earnest to see ; in respect I am unknown unto your majesty, and 
 that your love towards me is manifested through your liberality in honoring 
 me with four presents, whereof, though I had no need, yet, coming in your 
 name, I received them in great worth, and hold them in good esteem. 
 
 "And further, whereas the Hollanders, your majesty's subjects, desire to 
 trade with their shipping in my country (which is of little value and small), 
 and to traffic with my subjects, and desire to have their abiding near unto 
 my court, whereby in person I might help and assist them, which cannot be 
 as now, through the inconvenience of the country ; yet, notwithstanding, I 
 will not neglect, as already I have been, to be careful of them, and to give 
 in charge to all my governors and subjects that, in what places and havens, in 
 what port soever they shall arrive, they shall show them all favor and friend- 
 ships to their persons, ships and merchandise ; wherein your majesty or your 
 subjects need not to doubt or fear aught to the contrary. For they may 
 come as freely as if they came into your majesty's own havens and countries, 
 and so may remain in my country to trade. And the friendship begun be- 
 tween me and my subjects with you shall never be impaired on my behalf, 
 but augmented and increased. 
 
 " I am partly ashamed that your majesty (whose name and renown through 
 your valorous deeds is spread through the whole world) should cause your 
 subjects to come from so far countries into a country so unfitting as this is, to 
 visit me, and to offer unto me such friendships as I have not deserved. But 
 considering that your affection hath been the cause thereof, I could not but 
 friendly entertain your subjects, and yield to their requests, whereof this 
 shall serve for a testimony ; that they in all places, countries and islands, 
 under mine obedience, may trade, and traffic, and build houses serviceable 
 and needful for their trade and merchandises, where they may trade without 
 any hindrance at their pleasure, as well in time to come as for the present, 
 bo that no man shall do them any wrong. And I will maintain and defend 
 them as mine own subjects. 
 
144 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G07— 1618. 
 
 "I promise, likewise, that the persons whom I understand shall be left 
 here, shall now and at all times be held as recommended unto me, and in 
 all things to favor them, whereby your majesty shall find us as your friends 
 and neighbors. 
 
 "For other matters passed between me and your majesty's servants, 
 Which would be too long here to repeat, I refer myself unto them." * 
 
 The Dutch were greatly indebted for their success to Foyne- 
 Sama, king of Firando, who interested himself greatly in the 
 establishment of a Dutch factory in his island. In fact, it had 
 been at his expense that the two Dutchmen, shipmates of Adams, 
 had some 'years before been sent to Patania upon their promise to 
 induce their countrymen to open a trade to Japan. In addition to 
 this outlay, which had amounted to fifteen hundred taels, he had 
 furnished the Dutch belonging to the two recently arrived vessels, 
 with a galley manned with fifty-six rowers, for their visit to court, 
 of which they had the use for two months ; and he had, besides, 
 accommodated them by purchasing all their pepper and silk, the 
 latter article at a considerable loss to himself. 
 
 Some time previous to the arrival of these Dutch ships, in the 
 autumn of 1608, Don Rodrigo de Vivero, the late governor of 
 Manilla, returning to New Spain in the galleOn, the St. Francis, was 
 wrecked on the south-east coast of Nipon. At first it was not 
 known what land it was ; but a Japanese Catholic on board soon 
 recognized it. The crew, who had escaped to the shore, proceeded 
 to a neighboring village, the people of which evinced much com- 
 passion for them, the women even shedding tears. They gave 
 them clothing and food (consisting of rice, pulse and a little fish), 
 and sent word to the tono, or lord of the district, who issued 
 orders that they should be well treated, but not suffered to 
 remove. 
 
 They were soon visited by the tono, who came in great pomp, 
 preceded by three hundred men ; some bearing banners, others 
 armed with lances, matchlocks and halberts. He saluted Don 
 Rodrigo with much politeness, by a motion of his head and hand, 
 
 * This letter is given by Purchas, vol. L, p. 406. It has neither date nor 
 signature, nor does it appear who is responsible for the correctness of the 
 translation. 
 
DON RODRIGO DE VIVERO. 145 
 
 and placed him on his left, that being considered the place of honor 
 among the Japanese, because the swords are worn on that side. 
 He made Don Rodrigo several presents, and took upon himself the 
 subsistence of the party, allowing two Spanish officers to proceed 
 to the emperor's court, to communicate to him and to his son and, 
 according to the Japanese custom, colleague, the details of the 
 case. 
 
 Jedo, where the emperor's son resided, was about forty leagues 
 distant, and Seruga, where the emperor held his court, still forty 
 leagues further. The messengers returned in twenty-four days, 
 with an officer of the prince, charged with . a message of condo- 
 lence from the emperor, and leave to visit their courts. All the 
 property that could be saved from the wreck was given up to the 
 Spaniards. 
 
 The first place on their route was a town of ten or twelve thou- 
 sand inhabitants. The tono took Don Rodrigo to his castle, situ- 
 ated on a height, and surrounded by a ditch fifty feet deep, passed 
 by a drawbridge. The gates were of iron ; the walls of solid 
 masonry, eighteen feet high, and the same in thickness. Near the 
 first gate stood a hundred musketeers, and between that and the 
 second gate, which opened through a second wall, were houses, gar- 
 dens, orchards and rice-fields. The dwelling rooms were of wood ; 
 exquisitely finished and adorned with a profusion of gold, silver, 
 varnish, &c. 
 
 All the way to Jedo the density of the population greatly sur 
 prised the Spaniards, who were everywhere well lodged and enter- 
 tained. They entered that city amid such a crowd, that the officers 
 of police had to force a way for them, — and yet the streets were 
 very broad. Such crowds collected about the house which the 
 prince had ordered to be prepared for them, that they had no rest ; 
 till at last a guard was placed about it, and a tablet set up, pro- 
 hibiting the populace from molesting them. Of the city, Rodrigo 
 gives this description : " Jedo contains seven hundred thousand 
 inhabitants, and is traversed by a considerable river which is navi- 
 gable by vessels of moderate size. By this river, which divides in 
 the interior into several branches, the inhabitants are supplied with 
 provisions and necessaries, which are so cheap that a man may live 
 comfortably for a rial (five cents) a day. The Japanese do not 
 13 
 
146 JAPAN. — A. D. 1607—1618. 
 
 make much wheaten bread, though what they do make is excellent. 
 The streets and squares of Jedo are very handsome, clean and wel\ 
 kept. The houses are of wood, and mostly of two stories. The 
 exterior is less imposing than with us, but they are far handsomer 
 and more comfortable within. Towards the street the houses have 
 covered galleries, and each street is occupied by persons of the same 
 calling; carpenters in one, jewellers in another, tailors in another ; 
 including many trades unknown in Europe. The merchants and 
 traders dwell together in the same way. Provisions also are sold 
 in places appointed for each sort. I observed a market where 
 game was sold ; there was a great supply of rabbits, hares, wild 
 boars, deer, and other animals which I never saw before. The 
 Japanese rarely eat any flesh but that of game, which they hunt. 
 The fish market, very extensive and extremely neat and clean, affords 
 a great variety of fish, sea and river, fresh and salt ; and there were 
 large tubs containing live fish. Adjoining the inns are places 
 where they let and sell horses, and these places are so numerous, 
 that the traveller, who, according to custom, changes his horse every 
 league, is only embarrassed where to choose. The nobles and great 
 men inhabit a distant part of the city, and their quarter is distin- 
 guished by the armorial ornaments, sculptured, painted or gilt, 
 placed over the doors of the houses, — a privilege to which the 
 Japanese nobles attach great value. The political authority is 
 vested in a governor, who is chief of the magistracy, civil and mil- 
 itary. In each street resides a magistrate who takes cognizance, 
 in the first instance, of all cases, civil and criminal, submitting the 
 more difficult to the governor. The streets are closed at each end 
 by a gate, which is shut at nightfall. At each gate is placed a 
 guard of soldiers, with sentinels at intervals ; so that, if a crime is 
 committed, notice is conveyed instantly^o each end of the street, and, 
 the gates being closed, it rarely happens that the offender escapes. 
 This description is applicable to all the other cities in the king- 
 dom." 
 
 After an interval of two days, the prince sent his secretary, whose 
 name was Konsekondono, to invite Don Rodrigo to visit him. The 
 palace he describes as enclosed by a wall of immense blocks of free- 
 stone, put together without cement, with embrasures, at equal dis- 
 tances, well furnished with artillery. At the foot of this wall was 
 
DON RODRIGO'S OBSERVATIONS. 14* 
 
 a deep wet ditch,- crossed by a drawbridge of a peculiar and very 
 ingenious construction. Don Rodrigo passed through two ranks of 
 musketeers, about one thousand in number, to the second wall, dis- 
 tant from the first three hundred paces. At the gate four hundred 
 lancers and pikemen were stationed. A third wall, about twelve 
 feet high, was guarded by three hundred halberdiers. Within was 
 the palace, with the royal stables on one side, containing three 
 hundred horses, and on the other an arsenal with arms for one 
 hundred thousand men. Rodrigo affirms that from the entrance to 
 the palace were more than twenty thousand men, not assembled for 
 the occasion, but constantly employed and paid for the daily service 
 of the court. 
 
 The first apartment of the palace was entirely covered with rich 
 ornaments, carpets, stuffs, velvet and gold. The walls were hung 
 with pictures representing hunting subjects. Each apartment ex 
 ceeded the preceding in splendor, till the further one was reached, 
 in which the prince was seated on a superb carpet of crimson velvet, 
 embroidered with gold, placed upon a kind of platform, raised two 
 steps, in the centre of the apartment. He wore three dresses, one 
 over the other, the exterior one green and yellow ; in his girdle 
 were his longer and shorter swords. His hair was tied up with 
 ribbons of different colors, and his head had no other ornament. 
 He was about thirty-five years of age ; of a brown complexion, a 
 pleasing figure and good height. Don Rodrigo was conducted to 
 a seat on the left hand of the prince, who conversed with him on a 
 variety of indifferent subjects. 
 
 Four days after, the travellers set off for Suruga, on a visit to 
 the emperor. The road is thus described : " On whatsoever side 
 the traveller turns his eyes, he perceives a concourse of people pass- 
 ing to and fro, as in the most populous cities of Europe. The roads 
 are lined on both sides with superb pine-trees, which keep off the 
 sun. The distances are marked by little eminences planted with 
 two trees." In the hundred leagues between Suruga and Miako, 
 several towns were passed, estimated to contain one hundred thou- 
 sand inhabitants, and a village occurred at every quarter of a league. 
 Rodrigo declares himself so delighted with Japan, that, " if he could 
 have prevailed upon himself to renounce his God and his king, he 
 should have preferred that country to his own. ' 
 
148 JAPAN. — A. D. 1607—1618. 
 
 He estimated Suruga to contain from five to six hundred thou« 
 sand inhabitants. The climate was more agreeable than that of 
 Jedo, but the city not so handsome. As at Jedo, a convenient res- 
 idence was provided for him, which the crowd besieged as they had 
 done there. The emperor sent a secretary to compliment him on 
 his arrival, with a present of rich dresses, and in about a week he 
 had his presentation. He was conveyed in an elegant litter to the 
 palace, which was a fortress like that at Jedo. On the whole, 
 there was less display than at the prince's court, but more marks of 
 power and fear. The interview with the emperor is thus described : 
 " I followed the minister, who conducted me into the presence of the 
 sovereign, whom I saluted. He was in a kind of square box, not 
 very large, but astonishingly rich. It was placed two steps above 
 the floor, and surrounded at four paces' distance by a gold lattice- 
 work, six feet high, in which were small doors, by which the empe- 
 ror's attendants went in and out, as they were called from the crowd, 
 prostrate on their hands and knees around the lattice.* The mon- 
 arch was encircled by nearly twenty grandees, ministers or princi- 
 pal courtiers, in long silk mantles, and trousers of the same mate- 
 rial, so long, that they entirely concealed the feet. The emperor 
 was seated on a kind of stool, of blue satin, worked with stars and 
 half-moons of silver. In his girdle he wore a sword, and had his 
 hair tied up with ribbons of different colors, but had no other head- 
 dress. His age appeared to be about sixty. He was of the middle 
 stature, and of a very full person. His countenance was venerable 
 and gracious ; his complexion not near so brown as that of the 
 prince." 
 
 As if to magnify the emperor, Don Rodrigo was detained during 
 the introduction of a tono of high rank, who brought presents in 
 gold, silver and silk, worth twenty thousand ducats. At a hundred 
 paces from the throne he prostrated himself with his face to the 
 floor, and remained in this posture for several minutes in perfect 
 silence, neither the emperor nor either of the ministers vouchsafing 
 a word. He then retired with his suite, consisting of three thousand 
 persons. After other exhibitions of the same sort, Don Rodrigo, 
 having been directed to make what requests he would, was conducted 
 
 * Most likely this " box " was formed by movable screens. See chapter 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
RECEPTION BY THE EMPEROR. 149 
 
 by two ministers to a third apartment, whence other great officers 
 escorted him out of the palace with all ceremony. 
 
 Afterwards he was entertained by Konsekondono, the prime mir> 
 ister, at a magnificent collation, the host pledging his health in 
 exquisite Japanese wine [saki ?] by placing the glass upon his 
 head.* The Spaniard presented at this time a memorandum of his 
 requests translated into Japanese. They were three — first, that 
 the royal protection might be granted to the Christian priests of 
 different orders who then resided in the empire, and that they 
 might not be molested in the free use and disposal of their houses 
 and churches ; secondly, that amity might continue between the 
 emperor and the king of Spain ; and, lastly, that, as an evidence 
 of that friendship, the emperor would not permit the Dutch (whose 
 arrival has already been mentioned) to reside in his territories, but 
 would drive them out — since, besides being enemies of Spain, they 
 were little better than pirates and sea-rovers. 
 
 The minister, the next day, after another collation, reported the 
 emperor's answer, who had remarked, with admiration, that Don 
 Rodrigo; though destitute, had asked nothing for himself, but had 
 regarded only the interests of his religion and his king. The two 
 first requests were granted. As to the expulsion of the Hollanders, 
 that, the emperor said, " will be difficult this year, as they have 
 my royal word for permission to sojourn in Japan; but I am 
 obliged to Don Rodrigo for letting me know what characters they 
 are." The emperor offered the shipwrecked Spaniard one of the 
 ships of European model, which the pilot Adams had built for him, 
 in which to proceed to New Spain ; and he begged him to request 
 King Philip to send to Japan fifty miners, as he understood those 
 of New Spain to be very skilful, whereas those of Japan did not 
 obtain from the ore half the silver it was capable of yielding. 
 
 Don Rodrigo soon after set out for Ximo, where he was to take 
 ship. From Seruga to Miako, estimated at .one hundred leagues, 
 the country was mostly level and very fertile. Several considerable 
 rivers were crossed in large ferry-boats by means of a cable 
 stretched from bank to bank. Provisions were very cheap. His 
 
 * It is customary among the Japanese, on receiving a present from a 
 superior, to touch the top of the head with it. This custom is alluded to in 
 the king of Bungo's letter to the Pope, page 00. 
 18* 
 
150 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G07— 1618. 
 
 idea of the population of the country grew more and more exagger 
 ated. He insists that he did not pass a town of less population 
 than one hundred and fifty thousand ; and Miako, which he consid- 
 ers the largest city in the world, he sets down at one million fiv& 
 hundred thousand.* Situated upon a highly-cultivated plain, its walls 
 were ten leagues in circuit, as Don Rodrigo ascertained by riding 
 round them on horseback. It took him an entire day. He enters 
 into a number of details about the Dairi and his court. He was 
 powerless, and lived in splendid poverty. The court of the governor 
 of Miako, who had six vice-governors under him, was scarcely less 
 splendid than that of the emperor. He told Don Rodrigo that this 
 city contained five thousand temples and more than fifty thousand 
 public women. He showed him a temple, the largest building he 
 had seen in Japan, containing statues of all the gods, and another in 
 which was an immense bronze statue, the size of which filled him 
 with astonishment. " I ordered," he says, " one of my people to 
 measure the thumb of the right hand ; but, although he was a person 
 of the ordinary size, he could not quite encircle it with both arms. 
 But the size of the statue is not its only merit; the feet, hands, 
 mouth, eyes, forehead, and other features, are as perfect and as 
 expressive as the most accomplished painter could make a portrait. 
 When I first visited this temple it was unfinished ; more than one 
 hundred thousand men were daily employed upon it. The devil 
 could not suggest to the emperor a surer expedient to get rid of his 
 immense wealth." t 
 
 The temple and tomb of Taiko-Sama, raised since his death to 
 the rank of the gods, is thus described by Rodrigo, who deplores 
 the dedication of such an edifice to one whose " soul is in hell for 
 all eternity." The entrance was by an avenue paved with jasper 
 four hundred feet by three hundred. On each side, at equal dis- 
 tances, were posts of jasper, on which were placed lamps lighted at 
 
 * Descriptions of it will be found in chapters xxxvi. and xl., and also a 
 census taken in 1690. 
 
 f This image was first set up in the year 1576, by the Emperor Taiko 
 The temple in which it was placed was destroyed by the great earthquake of 
 1596. The rebuilding was commenced in 1602. The colossus, however, was 
 Beriously injured by another earthquake in 1662, after which it was melted 
 down, and a substitute prepared of wood covered with gilt paper. For a 
 description of it see chapters xxxvm. and xl. 
 
TOMB OF TAIKO-SAMA. 151 
 
 night. At the end of this passage was the peristyle of the temple, 
 ascended by several steps, and having on the right a monastery of 
 priests. The principal gate was encrusted with jasper and overlaid 
 with gold and silver ornaments skilfully wrought. The nave of the 
 temple was supported by lofty columns. There was a choir, as la 
 European cathedrals, with seats and a grating all round. Male and 
 female choristers chanted the prayers, much as in Catholic churches, 
 and the surplices put Hodrigo in mind of the prebends of Toledo. 
 The church was filled with silent devotees. Four of the priests 
 accosted him, and seem to have put him to great uneasiness by con- 
 ducting him to the altar of their " infamous relics," surrounded 
 with an infinite number of lamps. After raising five or six cur- 
 tains, covering as many gratings, first of iron, then of silver, and 
 the last one of gold, a kind of chest was exposed, in which were con- 
 tained the ashes of Taiko-Sama. Within this enclosure none but 
 the chief priests could enter. All the Japanese present prostrated 
 themselves. 
 
 Hastening to quit " this accursed spot," Rodrigo was accompa- 
 nied by the priests to their gardens, exceeding, he says, those of 
 \ranjuez. 
 
 Of the religion of Japan he makes the following observations : 
 " The Japanese, like us, use holy, or rather unholy, water, and 
 chaplets consecrated to their false gods, Xaka and Nido [Amida], 
 which are not the only ones that they worship, for there are no less 
 than thirty-five different sects or religions in Japan. Some deny 
 the immortality of the soul, others adore divers gods, and others 
 yet the elements. All are tolerated. The bonzes of all the sects 
 having concurred in a request to the emperor, that he would expel 
 our monks, the prince, troubled with their importunities, inquired 
 how many different religions there were in Japan. ' Thirty-five,' 
 was the reply. ' Well,' said he, ' where thirty-five sects can be 
 tolerated, we can easily bear with thirty-six; — leave the strangers 
 in peace.'" He estimates the Christians at three hundred thousand 
 — a much more probable number than the eighteen hundred thou- 
 sand, at which they were reckoned by the missionaries* whose 
 reckoning was the same now that it had been ten years before. 
 
 * The total number of baptisms in Japan, in 1G0G, according to the annual 
 
152 JAPAN. — A. D. 1607—1618. 
 
 From Miako Don Rodrigo proceeded to Faxima (Fucimi) 
 adjoining, where he embarked for Osaka, ten leagues down a 
 river, as large as the G-uadalquivir at Seville, and full of vessels. 
 Osaka, built close to the sea, he reckons to contain one million 
 inhabitants. Here he embarked in a junk for Nagasaki. Not 
 finding his vessel in proper repair, he accepted an invitation 
 from the emperor to return to Seruga, where he renewed his endeav- 
 ors to persuade that prince to expel the Dutch, but without effect 
 At last, with presents and despatches for the king of Spain, he set 
 sail August 1st, 1610, after a stay in Japan of nearly two years.* 
 
 Meanwhile an event occurred, of which Rodrigo makes no men- 
 tion, but for which the Portuguese were inclined to hold him 
 responsible, no less than the Dutch. The annual carac from Macao 
 had arrived, as we have seen, in the autumn of 1609, after an 
 interval of three' years, commanded, as it happened, by the very 
 same person who had been chief magistrate there on occasion of the 
 late seizure and execution of certain Japanese. The emperor 
 strengthened, as it was thought, by the expectation of Dutch and 
 Spanish trade, encouraged the prince of Arima to revenge the death 
 of his subjects who had perished at Macao ; and when the carac .was 
 ready to sail on her return voyage she was attacked by a fleet of 
 Japanese boats. They were two or three times repulsed, but, tak- 
 ing the carac at a disadvantage, becalmed and drifted into a nar- 
 row passage, they succeeded in setting her on fire, and in destroying 
 her with all her crew. 
 
 Both the Dutch factors who had been left in Japan, and the 
 king of that island, Foyne-Sama (or Foie-Sama), who had exerted 
 himself greatly for the establishment of Dutch commerce, were not 
 
 letter of that year, was almost three thousand. According to the letter of 
 1603, the numbel- of confessions heard that year was eighty thousand. It 
 appears from these letters that many female converts were made, among the 
 higher classes, by the reputed efficacy of relics and the prayers of the church 
 in cases of difficult labor. 
 
 * Don Rodrigo published in Spanish a narrative of his residence in Japan. 
 Of this very rare and curious work an abstract, with extracts, is given in 
 the Asiatic Journal, vol. ii., new series, 1830. The Spaniard is rathef 
 excessive in his estimates of population, but appears to have been sensible and 
 judicious. His accounts are well borne out, as we shall see, by those of Saris, 
 Kampfer, and others. His whole title was Don "Rodrigo de Vivero y Vel ;»sco. 
 
SECOND DUTCH VOYAGE THITHER. 15* 
 
 a little annoyed at the non-appearance of any Dutch vessels at 
 Firando during the year 1610. The Dutch in the East Indies had, 
 indeed, at this moment other things to attend to. Verhoeven, after 
 his return to the Moluccas, had been entrapped and treacherously 
 slain at Banda, by the natives of that island, along with many of 
 his principal officers. This, however, did not prevent the Dutch 
 from soon after making a treaty with these islanders, by which they 
 obtained the sole right of purchasing their nutmegs and mace, and 
 which they followed up by the establishment of not less than seven 
 forts in the Molucca Islands, and by vigorous, though as yet unsuc- 
 cessful attempts to drive away the Spaniards who had come to the 
 aid of the Portuguese. 
 
 The Moluccas thus occupied, Admiral "Wittert, who had suc- 
 ceeded to the command of the Dutch fleet, sailed with part of the 
 ships for Manilla ; for though the truce between Spain and Holland 
 was known, it had not' been proclaimed in the East Indies, and was 
 not regarded by either party. Here, unfortunately, Wittert suffered 
 himself to be surprised by a much superior Spanish force, and though 
 he fought with the greatest courage till he fell, his own ship and 
 two others were taken, and another blown up, two only making 
 their escape. 
 
 Immediately upon the arrival of the Red Lion in Holland, a 
 number of ships had been fitted out for Japan ; but the first to 
 arrive was a small yacht, called the Brach, in July, 1611, with only 
 a trifling cargo of cloths, silks, pepper, ivory and lead. Presently 
 a government officer came on board to demand a manifest of the 
 cargo to be sent to the emperor ; but this the Dutch did not like to 
 submit to, as the Portuguese were free from it, and especially as 
 the present cargo was so trifling. These demands being renewed, 
 finally, though somewhat perplexed by the small means they had of 
 making presents, they resolved upon a new mission to the emperor's 
 court. The king of Firando advised them also to extend their visit 
 to the hereditary prince at Jedo, and not to omit paying their 
 respects to Fide Jori, at Osaka, son of the late emperor, and who 
 might yet mount the throne. The king of Firando furnished a gal' 
 ley, in addition to one belonging to the factories, and two commis- 
 sioners, of whom the principal was Jacob Spex, set out for Seruga, 
 
154 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G07— 1618 
 
 July 17, with an interpreter and a Japanese gentleman as a guide 
 or conductor.* 
 
 The Oth of August they reached Osaka, defended by a fine castle, 
 in which dwelt Fide Jori, now eighteen years of age. He had 
 always been kept secluded, but enjoyed a large revenue, and had 
 many adherents, by whom, as the Dutch learnt, the hope of placing 
 him on the throne was zealously entertained. 
 
 Arriving at Miako, they learnt that a Portuguese embassy had 
 passed through it four days preceding. They were deputies from 
 Macao, who had landed at Kangoxima in a small vessel, and had 
 gone with rich presents to the emperor to solicit a renewal of trade 
 and indemnification for the vessels destroyed at Nagasaki two years 
 before. Accompanied by a large number of trumpeters and other 
 musicians, they marched, with great pomp, to the sound of tho 
 instruments, the whole of them, even their black slaves, clothed in 
 velvet of a uniform color. The governor of Miako, to whom they 
 had made rich presents, had furnished them with eighty-eight horses, 
 which they had equipped at their own expense. 
 
 Nor was this governor (the same apparently who had entertained 
 Don Rodrigo) less bountiful to the Dutch. He furnished them 
 with horses, a passport and letters to the chief of the emperor's 
 council, but refused their presents, not being accustomed, he said, 
 to take anything from strangers. When they pressed him, he still 
 refused to accept anything now, but promised, if they had anything 
 left at their return, to allow them to remember him — a piece of 
 disinterestedness by which the economical Dutch were greatly 
 charmed. 
 
 Just before reaching Seruga, they encountered Adams, the Eng- 
 lish pilot, to whom they had written, and who, upon arriving at 
 Seruga, hastened to Konsequidono, the same secretary of the em- 
 peror seen by Don Rodrigo, but whom the Dutch call president of 
 the council, to solicit for them a speedy audience. "While waiting 
 for it, they learnt that the Portuguese ambassadors had not been 
 
 * There is a narrative of this journey., rather a perplexed one, apparently 
 written by Spex himself, added to the Relation of Verhoeven's voyage in 
 Recueil des Voyages qui ont servi a V establisement da la Compagnie des Indes 
 Oriental dans les Provinces Unies. A full abstract of it is in the great 
 collection, Hist. Gen. des Voyages, vol. viii. 
 
SPEX'S NEGOTIATIONS. 155 
 
 very successful ; nor had a Spanish embassy, which had just arrived 
 from New Spain, with thanks to the emperor for his courtesies to 
 Don Rodrigo. The presents of this ambassador were very splendid ; 
 but his carriage was so haughty as to displease the Japanese. He 
 demanded leave for the Spaniards to build ships, for which the for- 
 ests and workmen of Japan afforded greater facilities than either 
 Manilla or New Spain, and to explore the coasts, the Spaniards' 
 ignorance of which had cost them the loss of some valuable vessels. 
 This was agreed to ; but the emperor declined the request for the 
 expulsion of the Dutch, saying that he had nothing to do with 
 these European quarrels. Adams was present at these interviews ; 
 nor did he fail by his representations to excite the suspicions of the 
 emperor against the Spaniards. 
 
 Sionsubrondono, the, emperor's treasurer, freely told the Dutch 
 that the Spaniards and Portuguese had represented them as coming 
 to Japan rather as privateersmen than as traders, and that, as 
 might be seen by the smallness of their present cargo, their chief 
 resource for trade was in the prizes they took. But Adams entered 
 with great zeal into their defence, insisting upon their honesty and 
 fairness as the qualities which had given them such success in trade, 
 referring to the recent truce with Spain as showing that plunder 
 tvas not their object, and excusing the smallness of the present 
 venture by the lack, as yet, of any regular treaty. 
 
 These representations were not without their effect. Konsequidono 
 received the Dutch very graciously, approved the requests which 
 they made on the subject of trade, and promised to lay them before 
 the emperor pending tfieir visit to Jedo, for Which he furnished 
 them with vessels, horses and guides. With much persuasion he 
 was at last induced to accept a present, which the Dutch regarded 
 as a special favor, as he had positively declined any from the Por- 
 tuguese and Spaniards. Before their departure, they were admitted 
 to an audience from the emperor, who inquired of them how many 
 soldiers they had in the Moluccas ; * whether they traded to Borneo ; 
 whether it were true that the best camphor came from that island ; 
 what odoriferous woods the Dutch had in their country ; and other 
 eimilar questions, to which they replied through their interpreter. 
 
 " They had about four hundred, and the Spaniards about twice as many. 
 
156 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G07— 1C81. 
 
 After they had taken their leave, Konsequidono and Sionsubrondono 
 reconducted them out of the hall, at the same time felicitating them 
 on their favorable audience. It was very unusual, they said, for 
 the emperor to make himself so familiar ; he did not bestow such 
 a favor even on the greatest lords of the empire, who brought 
 him presents of the value of ten, twenty and thirty thousand taels ; 
 nor had he said a single word to the Portuguese and Spanish 
 ambassadors. To Adams, who was called back to the royal apart- 
 ments, the emperor expressed himself greatly delighted with the 
 presents, as showing that the Dutch were " past masters " in arts 
 as well as in arms. 
 
 The Dutchmen, having caused their propositions to be written out 
 in Japanese, placed them in the hands of Konsequidono, and, on the 
 18th, they were furnished with an order for ten horses, and a 
 letter to the hereditary prince at Jedo. Adams, who was in as 
 great favor at this court as at Seruga, lodged them in a house of 
 his own, and undertook to give notice of their arrival to Sadudono, 
 president of the prince's council and father of Konsequidono, who 
 sent an officer in return to make his compliments to the Dutchmen. 
 
 They made him a visit the next day, with a present, which, as a 
 great favor, he condescended to accept. He inquired of them par- 
 ticularly the cause of the war which had lasted so long between the 
 Spaniards and the Dutch, and the history of the negotiations which 
 had brought about the recent truce. The Dutch did not conceal 
 the small extent of their country, and the Japanese minister ex- 
 pressed great astonishment that so feeble a state should have resisted 
 with such success so powerful a king. Finally, he treated them to 
 a collation of fruit. Though very old and infirm, he conducted 
 them to the passage, and promised to accompany them the next day 
 to the palace. Admitted to the imperial palace, the prince 
 thanked them for the journey they had undertaken to see him; 
 but when (pretending orders from Holland to that effect) they 
 besought his favor and protection, he dismissed them with a 
 nod. An officer, however, conducted them over the palace, and the 
 prince sent them some presents, though not very magnificent ones. 
 They themselves made many presents, principally cloth and glass 
 bottles, to many lords of the court, among whom -they found, in 
 k*gh favor, a brother of the young king of Firando. 
 
SPEX'S CHARTER. 157 
 
 jcVom Jeclo they proceeded to a port eighteen leagues distant, 
 (probably Uragawa), where Adams had another house, and where 
 tney found the Spanish ship which had brought the ambassa- 
 dor from New Spain. The ambassador himself was also there. 
 He sent them a very civil message, to which they responded with 
 equal civility. Pressing invitations for a visit passed between them, 
 but neither party would be the first to call on the other. By some 
 Flemings, however, attached to the ambassador's suite, they were 
 assured that the ambassador had no authority to demand the ex 
 elusion of the Dutch, which he had done on his own authority. 
 The embassy, they said, had been fitted out at an expense of fifty 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 Upon their return to Seruga, October 1st, Adams brought them 
 the patent which the emperor had granted for their commerce, and 
 which, being translated, proved to be in the following words : 
 
 " All Dutch ships that come into my empire of Japan, whatever place or 
 port they put into, we do hereby expressly command all and every one of 
 our subjects not to molest the same in any way, nor to be a hindrance to 
 them ; but, on the contrary, to show them all manner of help, favor and 
 assistance. Every one shall beware to maintain the friendship in assurance 
 of which we have been pleased to give our imperial word to these people ; and 
 svery one shall take care that our commands and promises be inviolably kept. 
 
 " Dated (according to the Japanese calendar equivalent to) August 80, 
 1611."* 
 
 The Dutch were very much troubled to find that the clause 
 guaranteeing freedom from the visits of inspectors and guards, 
 and interference with their trade by the government, which had 
 been the great object of their mission, was omitted. They made 
 representations on the subject to Konsequidono, who advised them 
 not to press it. But as they conceived it of the greatest impor- 
 tance, they drew up a Japanese memorial, which Adams presented 
 to the emperor, and the request of which Konsequidono seconded 
 with such effect that the emperor ordered an edict granting the 
 wishes of the Dutch to be drawn up, which he immediately proceeded 
 to sign. Such is the statement in Spex's narrative ; but no such 
 
 * Kampfer gives this translation, and also a fac-simile of the original 
 Japanese. The same translation is also given by Spex. 
 
 14 
 
158 JAPAN. A. D. 1607—1618. 
 
 document appears to be preserved in the archives of the Dutch 
 factory, the short one already given being everywhere cited and 
 relied upon as the charter of the Dutch trade to Japan, without 
 any mention anywhere else of any such supplement to it. 
 
 The return of the Dutchmen, by way of Miako, to Firando, does 
 not offer anything, remarkable, except their meeting at Sakai 
 (whither they went to learn the price of goods and the course of 
 trade there), with Melichor von Santvoort, one of the Dutchmen 
 who had reached Japan at the same time with Adams. After 
 selecting factors to stay behind, ordering the erection of warehouses, 
 and making such presents as their small means admitted to their 
 Japanese friends, their vessel set sail on her return the 28th of Sep 
 tember. 
 
 The Dutch, as we have seen, had been greatly assisted by Adams. 
 The Spanish envoy, in his negotiations, relied chiefly, as Don Rod- 
 rigo had done before him, on the advice and assistance of Father 
 Louis Sotelo, a Franciscan friar of noble descent* established at 
 Miako, who entered with great zeal into the project of a regular 
 trade between Japan and Mexico. But the old' jealousy which the 
 Japanese had long entertained of the Spaniards soon broke out 
 afresh. Some soundings made along the coast by the vessel which 
 brought out the Spanish ambassador were looked upon with great 
 suspicion and jealousy, which Adams is said to have aggravated. 
 Sotelo, despairing of success with the emperor, though at first he had 
 seemed to favor his projects, subsequently proposed the same scheme 
 to Mazamoney, who ruled over a part, or the whole, of the kingdom 
 of Oxu, or Mouts, in the north of Japan, hitherto almost unknown, 
 but to which a few missionaries had lately made their way. The 
 prince of Oxu adopted Sotelo's project with zeal, affecting also quite 
 a leaning towards the new faith, and, at Sotelo's suggestion, he sent 
 an ambassador to the Pope and the king of Spain. 
 
 After many disappointments, Sotelo with this ambassador set sail 
 at length for New Spain, about the end of the year 1613, in a vessel 
 belonging to Mazamoney ; and, by way of the city of Mexico, pro- 
 ceeded to Seville and Madrid, where they arrived in October, 1614. 
 
 * The Franciscan martyrology says he was born at Seville of the blood 
 royal. 
 
FATHER LOUIS SOTELO. 159 
 
 Thence they proceeded to Rome, and had an audience of the Pope, 
 November 30, 1615, by whom Sotelo was nominated bishop for the 
 north and east parts of Japan, and his legate for the whole of it. # 
 Having reached New Spain on his return, he found in the port of 
 Acapulco a Japanese vessel belonging to Mazamoney, — the same, 
 probably, in which he had arrived, and which, having disposed of a 
 cargo of Japanese goods, took on freight for Manilla a part of the 
 suite of a new Spanish governor of the Philippines, intending to 
 purchase at Manilla a cargo of Chinese silks. But the Council of 
 the Indies, under the influence of the Jesuits, and on the plea that 
 the nomination of all eastern bishops belonged to the king, opposed 
 Sotelo's consecration ; and the merchants of Manilla, alarmed at 
 the rivalry of New Spain for the Japanese trade, made such repre- 
 sentations that, on his arrival there, his papers were seized, and he 
 himself was sent back to the superiors of his order in New Mexico. 
 
 But long before the occurrence of this event, — in fact, previous 
 to the departure of Sotelo from Japan, — the Catholic faith there 
 had received a blow from which it never recovered, and which 
 brought it to speedy ruin. 
 
 * An account in Italian of Sotelo's embassy, Historia del Regno de Voxu 
 ■del Graponi, fyc, e del Ambasciata, fyc, was published at Rome the same 
 year, 1615. There is no Japanese letter of later date than 1601, in the col- 
 lection of Hay, or, as perhaps it ought rather to be called, of Martin Nutius 
 (at least so his name was written in Latin), citizen and bookseller of Ant- 
 werp, at the sign of the two storks, " a man zealous for the Catholic faith," 
 so Hay says, and by whom the collection was projected. He applied to the 
 rector of the Jesuit college at Antwerp, for an editor, and Hay was appointed. 
 A few of the letters were translated by Hay ; the greater part had already 
 appeared as separate pamphlets, translated by others. Hay's vehement 
 Scotch controversial spirit breaks out hotly in some of the dedicatory letters 
 which he has introduced. Of the Japanese letters subsequent to 1601, there 
 is no collection. They were published separately as they were received, 
 translated into Italian, from which were made French and Spanish trans- 
 lations. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ORIGIN AND COMMENCEMENT OF ENGLISH INTERCOURSE _ 'fli HH if APAN. - 
 CAPTAIN SARIS' VOYAGE THITHER, AND TRAVELS AM} MOTIVATIONS 
 
 THERE. NEW SPANISH EMBASSY FROM THE PHILIPPINE!) O0M11ERCIAL 
 
 RIVALRY OF THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH. — RICHARD COOiLB, MEAD OF THE 
 ENGLISH FACTORY. — A. D. 1611—1613. 
 
 The pilot, Adams, having heard from Spex that certain English 
 merchants had established themselves in fhe island of Java, he 
 wrote to them, under date of October 22, 1611, giving an account 
 of himself, and inclosing a letter to his wife, which he besought 
 these unknown countrymen of his to convey to his friends at Lime- 
 house or in Kent, so that his wife, " in a manner a widow," and his 
 fatherless children, might hear of him, and he of them, before his 
 death. " You shall understand," wrote Adams, " that the Holland- 
 ers have here an Indies of money, so that they need not to bring 
 silver out of Holland to the East Indies, for in Japan there is much 
 gold and silver to serve their turn in other places where need 
 requireth." He enumerated as vendible in Japan for ready money, 
 raw silk, damask, black taffetas, black and red cloth of the best 
 kinds, lead, &c. To a somewhat exaggerated, and otherwise not 
 very correct account of the extent and the geography of the Japan- 
 ese dominions, he added the following description of the inhabit ints : 
 " The people of this island of Japan are good of nature, com teous 
 above measure, and valiant in war. Their justice is severelr exe- 
 cuted, and without partiality, upon transgressors. They are gov- 
 erned in great civility. I think no land in the world better gov- 
 erned by civil policy. The people are very superstitious in heir 
 religion, and are of diverse opinions. There are many Jesuii. and 
 Franciscan friars in this land, and they have converted many be 
 Christians, and have many churches in the island." 
 
FIRST ENGLISH VOYAGE THITHER. 161 
 
 Tins letter, which was given in charge to the master's mate of 
 the Batch vessel, must have reached the English East India Com- 
 pany's factory at Bantam, in Java, previous to the first of June, 
 1612 ; for on that day an answer to it was despatched by the Globe, 
 which had just arrived from England, and which, sailing from Ban- 
 tam to Patania, met there the same master's mate who had brought 
 Adams' letter, and who, being just about to return to Japan in a 
 Dutch pinnace, promised to deliver the answer. 
 
 Already, however, independently, of Adams' letter, a project 
 had been started in England for opening a trade with Japan, 
 founded upon a knowledge of Adams' being there, derived from 
 the crew of the Dutch ship, the Bed Lion. The Globe, which 
 left England January 5, 1611, carried letters to Adams to that 
 effect, and she was followed in April by the Clove, the Thomas 
 and the Hector, under the command of Captain John Saris, an old 
 adventurer in the East, and a former resident at Bantam, with 
 letters from the king of England to the emperor of Japan. 
 
 After touching, trading, negotiating and fighting, at Socotra, 
 Mocha, and other ports of the Bed Sea, Saris arrived at Bantam 
 in October, 1612. Soon after his arrival the letter of Adams was 
 re-read in presence of the assembled merchants ; and doubtless it 
 encouraged Saris in his- project of visiting Japan. Having taken in 
 seven hundred sacks of pepper, in addition to the broadcloths, gun- 
 powder, arid other goods brought from England, Saris sailed on the 
 14th of January, 1613, in the Clove, his crew consisting of seventy- 
 four English, one Spaniard, one Japanese, to serve as an interpre- 
 ter, he speaking also the Malay language, which Captain Saris 
 understood, and five Swarts, probably Malays. 
 
 Passing in sight of the south coast of Celebes, Saris touched at 
 several of the ports in the group of the Moluccas, occupied at 
 that time, some of them by Dutch and others by Spanish facto- 
 ries, — the Spaniards from Manilla having come to the rescue of the 
 Portuguese, whom the Dutch had driven out. Begarding all new 
 comers (if of any other nation than their own) with scarcely less 
 suspicion and hostility than they did each other, and both of them 
 joining to oppress and plunder the unhappy natives, " who were 
 wrought upon," so Saris says, " to spoil one another in civil war," 
 the Dutch and Spaniards, secure in strong forts, sat by and looked 
 14* 
 
162 JAPAN. — A. D. 1611—1613. 
 
 on, " prepared to take the bone from him that would wrest it from 
 his fellow." The Dutch fort at Buchian had a garrison of thirty 
 Dutch soldiers, and eleven Dutch women, " able to withstand th< 
 fury of the Spaniard, or other nation whatsoever, being of a verj 
 lusty, large breed." 
 
 The Dutch commander would not allow the natives to trade witk 
 the English, even to the extent of a single katty of cloves, threat- 
 ening with death those who did so, and claiming all the Spic* 
 Islands held by them as " their country, conquered by the sword 
 they having, with much loss of blood and money, delivered the 
 inhabitants from the tyranny of the Portuguese, and having made a 
 perpetual contract with them for the purchase of all their spices at 
 a fixed rate," in the case of cloves at about eight cents the pound. 
 This claim of exclusive right of trade Captain Saris declined to 
 acknowledge ; at the same time he professed his readiness to give 
 the Dutch, " as neighbors and brethren in Christ," a preference in 
 purchasing any part of his cargo of which they might happen to stand 
 in need. 
 
 The English and Dutch had been ready enough to join together 
 in breaking up the Portuguese and Spanish monopoly, and in forc- 
 ing a trade in the Indian, seas ; but it was already apparent that 
 the Dutch East India Company, which in the amount of capital at 
 its command very far surpassed the English Company, was bent on 
 establishing a monopoly of its own, not less close than" that for- 
 merly maintained by the Portuguese. The Spaniards, on the other 
 hand, professed friendship, and made some offers of trade ; but Cap- 
 tain Saris, suspecting treachery, did not choose to trust them. 
 
 On the 14th of April, he left the Moluccas, and stood on his 
 course for Japan. On the 10th of June, having been in sight of 
 land for a day or two, his ships were boarded by four great fishing- 
 boats, fitted with both sails and oars, from whose crews they learned 
 that they were off the harbor of Nagasaki. In fact, one of these 
 boats belonged to the Portuguese, and was manned by " new Chris- 
 tians," who had mistaken the ships of Captain Saris for the 
 annual Portuguese carac. Finding their mistake, no entreaty 
 could prevail upon them to stay ; but two of the other boats, for 
 thirty dollars each in money, and rice for food, agreed to pilot 
 the ship to Firando, by the pilot's reckoning some thirty leagues to 
 
THE ENGLISH AT FIRANDO. 163 
 
 the north, and the boatmen coming on board began to assist in work- 
 ing the vessel, showing themselves not less handy than the English 
 sailors. 
 
 No sooner had the ship anchored off Firando, than she was vis- 
 ited by the king or hereditary governor of that island, by name 
 Foyne-Sama, — the same who had shown so much favor to the 
 Dutch, — upward of seventy years old, attended by his nephew or 
 grandchild, a young man of two-and-twenty, who governed under 
 him. They came with forty boats or galleys, with from ten to fif- 
 teen oars a side; but on approaching the vessel, all fell back, except 
 the two which carried the princes, who came on board unattended, 
 except by a single person each. They were bareheaded and bare- 
 legged, wearing shoes, but no stockings ; the fore-part of their heads 
 shaven to the crown, and their hair behind, which was very long, 
 gathered up into a knot. They were clad in shirts and breeches, 
 over which was a silk gown girt to them, with two swords of the 
 country at their side, one half a yard in length, the other half as 
 long. Their manner of salutation was to put off their shoes, and 
 then stooping, with their right hand in their left, and both against 
 their knees, to approach with small sidling steps, slightly moving 
 their hands at the same time, and crying Augh ! Augh I 
 
 Captain Saris conducted them to his cabin, where he had a ban- 
 quet spread, and a concert of music, with which they seemed much 
 delighted. The old king received with much joy a letter from the 
 king of England, but put off reading it till " Auge " (or, according 
 to Adams' way of writing it, Angiu*) should come — that word 
 being the Japanese for pilot, and the name by which Adams was 
 known, to whom, then at Jedo, letters were sent the same night, 
 as also to the emperor. 
 
 As soon as the king had gone on shore, all his principal people, 
 attended by a multitude of soldiers, entered the ship, each man of 
 consequence bringing a present of venison, wild boar, large and 
 fat wild fowl, fruits, fish, &c. ; but as the crowd proved troublesome, 
 king Foyne sent an officer on board to keep order and prevent mis- 
 chief The next day came some three-score great boats or galleys, 
 
 * "lam called in the Japanese tongue Angiu Sama. By that name am I 
 known all the coaSt along." — Letters of Adams, Jan. 12, 1614. 
 
164 JAPAN. — A. D. 1611—1613. 
 
 very well manned, which towed the vessel into the harbor of which 
 the entrance was narrow and dangerous. Here they anchored in five 
 fathoms, so close to the shore that they could talk with the peoplf 
 in the houses, saluting the town with nine pieces of o*rdnance — & 
 compliment which the inhabitants were unable to return, having no 
 cannon, only pieces for small shot. The ship was speedily surrounded 
 with boats full of people, who seemed much to admire her head and 
 stern, and the decks were so crowded with men, women and chil- 
 dren, that it was impossible to move about. The captain took sev- 
 eral of the better sort of women into his cabin, where a picture of 
 Venus and Cupid " did hang somewhat wantonly, set out in a large 
 frame, which, mistaking it for the Virgin and her Son, some of those 
 women kneeled to and worshipped with great devotion," at the same 
 time whispering in a low tone, that they might not be overheard by 
 their companions, that they were Christianos ; by which it was 
 understood that they were converts of the Portuguese Jesuits. 
 
 Soon after, king Foyne came again on board, and brought with 
 him four women of his family. They were barelegged, except that 
 a pair of half-buskins were bound by a silk ribbon about their insteps, 
 and were clad in a number of silk gowns, one skirt over another, 
 bound about their waists by a girdle, their hair very black and long, 
 and tied in a comely knot on the crown of the head, no part of which 
 was shaven, like the men's. They had good faces, hands and feet, 
 clear-skinned and white, but wanting color ; which, however, they sup- 
 plied by art. They were low in stature and very fat, courteous in 
 behavior, of which they well understood the ceremonials according 
 to the Japanese fashion. At first they seemed a little bashful; but 
 the king " willing them to be frolic," and all other company being 
 excluded except Captain Saris and the interpreter, they sang sev- 
 eral songs, playing on an instrument much like a guitar, but with 
 four strings only, which they fingered very nimbly with the left 
 hand, holding in the other a piece of ivory, with which they touched 
 the strings, playing and singing by book, the tunes being noted on 
 lines and spaces, much the same as European music. 
 
 Not long after, desirous to be " frolic," the king brought ca board 
 a company of female actors — such as were common in Japan, little 
 better it would seem, than slaves and courtesans, being under the 
 control of a master, who carried them from place lo place, selling 
 
JAPANESE DRAMA. 165 
 
 their favors, and " exhibiting comedies of war, love and such like, 
 with several shifts of apparel for the better grace of the matter 
 acted." 
 
 It appeared, however, on a subsequent occasion, on which several 
 of the English were present, that, besides these professional actors, 
 the king and his principal courtiers were accustomed, on certain 
 great festivals, at which the whole country was present, to present a 
 play, of which the matter was the valiant deeds of their ancestors, 
 from the beginning of their kingdom or commonwealth, intermixed, 
 however, with much mirth, "to give the common people content." 
 On that occasion they had as musical instruments, to assist their 
 voices, little tabors or stringed instruments, small in the middle and 
 large at both ends, like an hour-glass ; also fifes ; but though they 
 kept exact time, the whole performance was very harsh to English 
 ears. 
 
 While waiting for Adams, who presently arrived, after being sev- 
 enteen days on his way, a house on shore for a factory was hired, 
 furnished with mats, according to the custom of the country, for a 
 rent of about ninety-five dollars for six months. ^JsTot long after, 
 leaving Mr. Richard Cocks in charge of the factory and the trade, 
 Captain Saris set out on a visit to the emperor, attended by Adams 
 and seventeen persons of his own company, including several mer- 
 cantile gentlemen, a tailor, a cook, the surgeon's mate, the Jap- 
 anese interpreter, the coxswain, and one sailor. He was liberally 
 furnished by old king Foyne with a conductor for the journey, a 
 large galley, of twenty-five oars a side, manned with sixty men, and 
 also with a hundred taels in Japanese money (equal to one hundred 
 and twenty-five dollars), to pay his expenses, which, however, 
 Captain Saris directed Cocks to place to king Foyne's credit as so 
 much money lent. 
 
 The galley being handsomely fitted up with waist-cloths and 
 ensigns, they coasted along the western and northern shores of the 
 great island of Ximo (or Kiusiu), off the north-west coast of which 
 the small island of Firando lay. As they coasted along, they passed 
 a number of handsome towns. Faccata, distant two days' rowing 
 from Firando, had a very strong castle of freestone, with a wide and 
 deep ditch and drawbridge, kept in good repair, but without can- 
 non or garrison. Here, finding the current too strong, they 
 
166 JAPAN. — A. D. 1611—1613. 
 
 stopped to dine. The town seemed as large as London within the 
 walls, very well built, with straight streets. As they landed, they 
 had experience, repeated almost wherever they went, of that antip* 
 athy to foreigners, so characteristic a trait of the country ; for 
 the boys v children, and worser sort of idle people, would gather 
 about them, crying out Core, Core, Cocore, Ware, taunting them 
 by these words as Coreans with false hearts, whooping, hollowing, 
 and making such a noise, that the English could hardly hear each 
 other speak, and even in some places throwing stones at them — all 
 which went on without any interference on the part of the public 
 officers. In general, however, the police was very strict, and punish- 
 ments very prompt and bloody. Saris saw several executions in the 
 streets, after which, every passer-by was allowed to try his sword on 
 the dead bodies, which thus are chopped into small pieces, and 
 left for the birds of prey to devour. All along the coast they 
 noticed many families living in boats upon the water, as in Holland, 
 the women being very expert fishers, not only with lines and nets, 
 but by diving, which gave them, however, blood-shot eyes. 
 
 Coasting through the Strait of Sinomosiqui and the channel 
 which separates Nipon from the two more southern islands, on the 
 twentieth day after leaving Firando they reached the entrance of 
 a river, a short distance up which lay the town of Osaka, which, 
 however, they could only reach in a small boat. This town, which 
 seemed as large as Faccata, had many handsome timber bridges 
 across a river as wide as the, Thames at London. It had, also, a 
 great and very strong castle of freestone, in which, as they were 
 told, the son of the late emperor, left an infant at his father's 
 decease, was kept a close prisoner. Some nine miles . from Osaka, 
 on the "other side of the river, lay the town o£ Sakai, not so large, 
 but accessible to ships, and a place of great trade. 
 
 Leaving their galley at Osaka, Captain Saris and his company 
 passed in boats up a river or canal, one day's journey, to Fusimi, 
 where they found a garrison of three thousand soldiers, maintained 
 by the emperor to keep in subjection Osaka, and the still larger 
 neighboring city of Miako. The garrison being changed at that 
 time, the old troops marching out, and new ones marching in, a 
 good opportunity was afforded to see their array. They were 
 armed with a species of fin -arms, pikes, swords and targets, bows 
 
167 
 
 and arrows, and wagadaihes, described as like a Welsh hook. They 
 marched five abreast, with an officer to every ten files, withou* 
 colors or musical instruments, in regiments'of from a hundred and 
 fifty to five hundred men, of which one followed the other at the 
 distance of a league or two, and were met for two or three days 
 on the road. Captain Saris was very favorably impressed with 
 the discipline and martial bearing of these troops. The captain- 
 general, whom they met in the rear, marched in very great state, 
 hunting and hawking all the way, the hawks being managed exactly 
 after the European fashion. The horses were of middle size, small- 
 headed, and very full of mettle. 
 
 At Fusimi, Captain Saris and his company quitted their bark, and 
 were furnished each man with a horse to travel over land to Suruga; 
 where the emperor held his court. For Captain Saris a palanquin 
 was also provided, with bearers to carry it, two at a time, six in 
 number where the way was level, but increased to ten when it 
 became hilly. A spare horse was led beside the palanquin for him 
 to ride when he pleased, and, according to the custom of the coun- 
 try with persons of importance, a slave was appointed to run before 
 him, bearing a pike. 
 
 Thus they travelled, at the rate of some forty-five miles a day, 
 over a highway for the most part very level, but in some places cut 
 through mountains ; the distances being marked, in divisions of 
 about three miles, by two little hillocks on each side of the way, 
 planted at the top with a fair pine-tree, " trimmed round in fashion 
 of an arbor." This road, which was full of travellers, led by a 
 succession of farms, country-houses, villages, and great towns. It. 
 passed many fresh rivers by ferries, and near many fotoquis, or 
 temples, situated in groves, "the most pleasantest places for delight 
 in the whole country." 
 
 Every town and village was well furnished with taverns, when 
 meals could be had at a moment's warning. Here, too, lodging!: 
 were obtained, and horses and men for the palanquin were taken 
 up by the director of the journey, like post-horses in England. The 
 general food was observed to be rice. The people ate also fish, wild 
 fowl of various kinds, fresh and salted, and various picked herbs and 
 roots. Tbey ploughed .with horses and oxen, as in Europe, and 
 
168 JAPAN. — A. D. 1611—1613. 
 
 raised good red wheat. Besides saki, made from rice, they diank 
 with their food warm water. # 
 
 The entrance of the travellers into Suruga, where the emperor 
 held his court, and which they reached on the seventh day, was not 
 very savory, as they were obliged to pass several crosses, with the 
 dead and decaying bodies of the malefactors still nailed to them 
 This city they judged to be as large as London with all the suburbs.! 
 The handicraftsmen dwelt in the outskirts of the town, so as not to 
 disturb with their pounding and hammering the richer and more 
 leisurely sort. 
 
 After a day or two spent in preparations, Saris, accompanied by 
 the merchants and others, went in his palanquin to the palace, bear- 
 ing his presents, according to the custom of the country, on little 
 tables, or rather salvers, of a sweet-smelling wood. Having entered 
 the castle, he passed three drawbridges, each with its guard, and, 
 ascending a handsome stone staircase, he was met by two grave, 
 comely men, Kaskadono, the emperor's secretary,! and Fungodono, 
 the admiral, who led him into a matted antechamber. Here they 
 all sat down on the mats, but the two officers soon rose again, and 
 took him into the presence-chamber, to bestow due reverence 
 on the emperor's empty chair of state. It was about five feet high, 
 the sides and back richly ornamented with cloth of gold, but with- 
 out any canopy. The presents given in the name of the king, and 
 others by Captain Saris in his own name (as the custom of the 
 country required), were arranged about this room. 
 
 After waiting a little while longer in the antechamber, it was 
 announced that the emperor had come, when the officers motioned 
 Saris into the room, but without entering themselves. Approach- 
 ing the emperor, he presented, with English compliments (on his 
 
 * Saris makes no mention of tea, not yet known .to the Europeans, and 
 •which, perhaps, he confounded with this hot water. All subsequent travel- 
 lers have noted this practice of the Japanese of drinking everything warm, 
 even to water. Cold drinks might tend too much to check the digestion of 
 their vegetable food ; at any rate, they are thought to be frequently the 
 occasion of a violent colic, one of the endemic diseases of Japan. 
 
 t London had at that time a population of two hundred and fifty thousand. 
 
 % This appears, from various circumstances, to be the same person called 
 Konsekondono in the narratives of Don Rodrigo and Jacob Spex. 
 
16S 
 
 knee, it may be presumed), the king's letter, which the emperor 
 took and raised toward his forehead, telling the interpreter to bid 
 them welcome after their wearisome journey, and that in a day or 
 two his answer would be ready. He invited them in the mean time 
 to visit his son, who resided at Jedo. 
 
 The country between Suruga and Jedo, which were two. days' 
 journey apart, was found to be well inhabited. They saw many 
 temples on the way, one of which contained a gigantic image of 
 Buddha, made of copper, hollow within, but of very substantial 
 thickness. It was, as they guessed, twenty-two feet high, in like- 
 ness of a man kneeling on the ground, and seated on his heels, 
 clothed in a gown, his arms of wonderful size, and the whole body 
 In proportion. The echo of the shouts of some of the company, who 
 went into the body of it, was very loud. Some of the English left 
 their names written upon it, as they saw was customary. 
 
 Jedo was found to be a city much larger than Suruga, and with 
 much handsomer buildings, making a very glorious appearance as 
 they approached, the ridge tiles and corner tiles, and the posts of 
 the doors, being richly gilded and varnished. There were, however, 
 no glass windows, but window-shutters instead, opening in leaves, 
 and handsomely painted. 
 
 From Jedo, where our travellers were received much as they 
 had been at Suruga, they proceeded some forty miles, by boats, to 
 Oringa, an excellent harbor on the sea-side, whence, in eight days, 
 they coasted round a projecting point of land back to Suruga, whero 
 they received the emperor's answer to the king's letter, also an en- 
 grossed and official copy of certain privileges of trade, a draught of 
 which they had furnished to the emperor's secretary, and which, 
 having been condensed as much as possible, to suit the Japanese 
 taste for brevity, and thus reduced from fourteen articles to eight, 
 were expressed in the. following terms : 
 
 "1. Imprimis. We give free license to the subjects of the king of Great 
 Britain, namely, Sir Thomas Smith, governor, and the company of the East 
 India merchants and adventurers, forever, safely to come into any of the 
 ports of our empire of Japan, with their ships and merchandises, without any 
 hindrance to them or their goods, and to abide, buy, sell and barter, accord- 
 ing to their own manner, with all nations : to tarry here as long as they think 
 good, and to depart at their pleasures 
 15 
 
170 JAPAN. — A. D. 1611—1613. 
 
 " 2. Item. We grant unto them freedom of custom for all such merchan 
 dises as either now they have brought or hereafter they shall bring into oui 
 kingdoms, or shall from hence transport to any foreign part ; and d% author 
 ize fhose ships that hereafter shall arrive and come from England, to pro- 
 ceed to present sale of their commodities, without further coming or sending 
 up to our court. 
 
 " 3. Item. If any of their ships shall happen to be in danger of shipwreck, 
 we will our subjects not only to assist them, but that such part of ship and 
 goods as shall be saved be returned to their captain or cape-merchant,* or their 
 assigns : and that they shall or may build one house or more for themselves, 
 in any part of our empire where they shall think fittest, and at their depart- 
 ure to make sale thereof at their pleasure. 
 
 "4. Item. If any of the English, merchants or other, shall depart this 
 life within our dominions, the goods of the deceased shall remain at the dis- 
 pose of the cape-merchant : and all offences committed by them shall be 
 punished by the said cape-merchant, according to his discretion ; our laws 
 to take no hold of their persons or goods. 
 
 "5. Item. We will that ye our subjects, trading with them for any of 
 their commodities, pay them for the same according to agreement, without 
 delay, or return of their wares again unto them. 
 
 " 6. Item. For such commodities as they have now brought, or shall here- 
 after bring, fitting for our service and proper use, we will that no arrest be 
 made thereof, but that the price be made with the cape-merchant, according 
 as they may sell to others, and present payment upon the delivery of the goods. 
 
 " 7. Item. If, in discovery of other countries for trade, and return of their 
 ships, they should need men or victuals, we will that ye our subjects furnish 
 them for their money as their need shall require. 
 
 " 8. And that, without further passport, they shall and may set out upon 
 £he discovery of Yeadzo,t or any other part in and about our empire. ' ' t 
 
 * This word, though not to be found in any of our dictionaries, was in cur- 
 " »nt use, at this time, in the signification of head merchant of a factory ship 
 #r trading post, — cape being, probably, a contraction of captain. 
 
 t Jeso, otherwise called Matsmai, the island north of Nipon. There is in 
 «*urchas' Pilgrimes, vol. i., p. 364, a short account of this island, obtained from 
 a Japanese, who had been there twice. It was visited in 1620 by Jerome de 
 Angelis, who sent home an account of its gold-washings, which reads very 
 much like a California letter. It was also then as now the seat of extensive 
 fisheries. The gold which it produced made the Dutch and English anxious 
 tc explore it. The Dutch made some voyages in that direction, and discov- 
 ered some of the southern Kuriles ; but the geography of those seas re- 
 mained very confused till the voyages of La Perouse. Matsmai was the 
 scene }f Golownin's captivity in 1812. [See ch. xliv.] One of the porta 
 granted to the Americans (Hocodade) is on the southern coast of this island. 
 
 i These Privileges are given by Purchas, Pilgrimes, vol. i., p. 375, with a 
 fac-simile of the original Japanese 
 
EMBASSY FROM THE PHILIPPINES. 17} 
 
 The letter from the emperor to the king of England did not 
 differ very materially from that to the prince of Orange, already 
 given. [See Appendix, Note I.] 
 
 In the original draught of the Privileges, there had been an 
 additional article, to the effect that, as the Chinese had refused to 
 trade with the English, in case the English should capture any 
 Chinese ships, they might be allowed the privilege of selling such 
 prizes in the Japanese. ports ; but this article, upon consideration, 
 the emperor refused to grant. 
 
 While these documents were under consideration, a Spanish 
 ambassador from the Philippines had arrived at Suruga with the 
 request that such Portuguese and Spaniards as were in the em- 
 peror's territories without authority from the king of Spain might 
 be delivered up to be transported to the Philippines — a request 
 occasioned by the great want of men to defend the Spanish posts 
 in the Moluccas against the Dutch, who were then preparing to 
 make an absolute conquest of the whole of those islands. But to 
 this demand the emperor replied that his country was a free coun- 
 try, and nobody should be forced out of it ; but if the ambassador 
 could persuade any of his countrymen to go, they should not be 
 prevented ; whereupon the ambassador departed, not a little dis- 
 contented. 
 
 The day after receiving the emperor's letter and the Privileges, 
 being the 9th of October, Captain Saris and his company set out by 
 land for Miako, where the presents were to be delivered to him, over 
 the same road by which they had travelled from Osaka to Suruga ; 
 but, owing to the heavy rains and the rising of the river, their 
 progress was much delayed. 
 
 Miako they found to be the greatest and most commercial city of 
 Japan. Here, too, was the largest fotoqui, or temple, in the whole 
 country, built of freestone, begun by the late emperor, and just 
 fiuished by the present one, as long, they estimated, as the part of 
 St. Paul's, in London, westerly from the choir, being as high-arched, 
 and borne upon pillars like that.* This temple was attended upon by 
 a great many bonzes, or priests, who thus obtained their living, being 
 
 * The old Gothic edifice, afterwards destroyed in the great fire of 1C66, is 
 the one here referred to. 
 
172 JAPAN. — A. D. 1611—1613. 
 
 supported by the produce of an altar, on which the worshippers 
 offered rice and small pieces of money, and near which was a colossal 
 copper image, like that already described, but much larger, reaching 
 to the very arch of the temple, which itself stood on the top of a hill, 
 having an avenue of approach on either side of fifty stone pillars, 
 ten paces apart, on each of which was suspended a lantern, lighted 
 every night.* 
 
 Here, also, the Jesuits had a very stately, college, in which many 
 of them resided, both Portuguese and natives, and in which many 
 children were trained up in the Christian religion according to the 
 Romish church. In this city alone there were not less than five or 
 six thousand professing Christians.! 
 
 But already that persecution was commenced which ended in the 
 banishment of the Jesuits from Japan, and, indeed, in the exclusion 
 of all Europeans, with a slight exception in favor of the Dutch. 
 Following up an edict of the previous year, against the Franciscans, 
 the emperor had issued a proclamation, about a month before Captain 
 6aris' arrival at Suruga, that no church should stand, nor mass be 
 sung, within ten leagues of his court, upon pain of death. 
 
 Having at length received the emperor's presents for the king of 
 England, being ten beobs, or " large pictures to hang a chamber 
 with," they proceeded the same day to Fusimi, and the next to Osaka, 
 where they reembarked in the galley which had been waiting for them, 
 and returned to Firando, having spent just three months on the 
 tour. 
 
 Captain Saris found that, during his absence, seven of his crew 
 had run away to Nagasaki, where they had complained to the Por- 
 tuguese of having been used more like dogs than men. Others, 
 seduced by drink and women, and sailor boarding-house keepers, — 
 just the same in Japan as elsewhere, — had committed great irregu- 
 larities, quarreling with the natives and among themselves, even to 
 wounding, and maiming, and death. What with these troubles, added 
 
 * Thic is the same temple and idol seen and described by Don Rodrigo. 
 
 + Captain Saris states that the New Testament had been translated into 
 Japanese for their use ; but this is doubtless a mistake. A number of books 
 of devotion were translated into Japanese, but we hear nowhere else of any 
 )N*»w Testament, nor were such translations a part of the Jesuit missionary 
 nv.ick'uery. 
 
RIVALKY OF THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH. 178 
 
 to a " tuff on" — a violent storm, — - which did a good deal of damage, 
 (though the ship rode it out with five anchors down), and alarms of 
 conflagration, founded on oracles of the bonzes, and numerous festi- 
 vals and entertainments, at which Cocks had been called upon to 
 assist, — one of which was a great feast, lasting three days and 
 three nights, to which the Japanese invited their dead kindred, 
 banqueting and making merry all night at their graves* — but little 
 progress had been made in trade. The cargo consisted largely of 
 broadcloths, which the Dutch had been selling, before the English 
 came, at seventeen dollars the yard. Captain Saris wished to 
 arrange with them to keep up the price, but the head of their fac- 
 tory immediately sent off to the principal places of sale large quan- 
 tities, which he disposed of at very low prices, in order to spoil the 
 market. The natives, also, were the more backward to buy, because 
 they saw that the English, though very forward to recommend their 
 cloth, did not much wear it themselves, the officers being clothed in 
 silks, and the men in fustians. So the goods were left in charge of 
 the factory, which was appointed to consist of eight English, in- 
 cluding Cocks and Adams (who was taken into the service of the 
 East India Company on a salary of one hundred pounds a year), 
 three Japanese interpreters, and two servants, with charge, against 
 the coming of the next ships, to search all the neighboring coasts 
 to see what trade might be had with any of them. 
 
 This matter arranged, and having supplied the place of those of 
 his crew who had died or deserted, by fifteen Japanese, and paid up 
 a good many boarding-house and liquor-shop claims against his men, 
 
 * Of another festival, on the 23d of October, Cocks gives the following 
 account : " The kings with all the rest of the nobility, accompanied with 
 divers strangers, met together at a summer-house set up before the great 
 pagoda, to see a horse-race. Every nobleman went on horseback to the place, 
 accompanied with a rout of slaves, some with pikes, some with small shot, 
 and others with bows and arrows. The pikernen were placed on one side of 
 the street, and the shot and archers on the other, the luiddest of the street 
 being left void to run the race : and light before the summer-house, where 
 the king and nobles sat, was a round buckler of straw hanging against the 
 wall, at Avhich the archers on horseback, running a full career, discharged 
 their arrows, both in the street and summei"-house where the nobles sat." 
 This, from the date, would seem to be the festival of Tensio dai Sin. Seep. 
 272, Caron, Relation du Ju})on, gives a similar description. 
 . 15* 
 
174 
 
 to be deducted out of their wages, Captain Saris sailed on the 5th 
 of December for Bantam, where he arrived the 3d of January, 
 1614. Having taken in a cargo of pepper, he sailed for home on 
 the 13th of February, anchored off the Cape of Good Hope on the 
 16th of May, and, on the 27th of September, arrived at Plymouth, 
 having in the preceding six weeks experienced worse weather an^ 
 encountered more danger than in the whole voyage beside* 
 
 * Captain Saris' account of his voyage and travels in Japan (which agrees 
 remarkably with the cotemporaneous observations of Don Kodrigo, and with 
 the subsequent ones of Kampfer and others), may be found in Purchas, 
 "His Pilgrimes" Part i., Book iv., chap, i., sect. 4-8. Cocks' not less curi- 
 ous observations may be found in chap, iii., sect. 1-3, of the same book and 
 part. There is also a readable summary of what was then known of Japan, 
 in Purchas, His Pilgrimage, Book v., ch. xv. 
 
 Bundall, in his "Memorials of the Empire of Japan" printed by the 
 Hackluyt Society, 1850, has re-published Adams' first letter, from two MSS. 
 in the archives of the East India Company ; but the variations from the 
 text, as given by Purchas, are hardly as important as he represents. He 
 gives also from the same records four other letters from Adams, not before 
 printed. It seems from these letters, and from certain memoranda of Cocks, 
 that there were three reasons why Adams did not return with Saris, not- 
 withstanding the empei'or's free consent to his doing so. Besides his wife 
 and daughter in England, he had also a wife, son and daughter in Japan. 
 Though he had the estate mentioned as given him by the emperor (called 
 Phebe, about eight miles from Uragawa), on which were near a hundred 
 households, his vassals, over whom he had power of life and death, yet he 
 had little money, and did not like to go home with an empty purse. He had 
 quarrelled with Saris, who had attempted to drive a hard bargain with him. 
 The E. I. Company had advanced twenty pounds to his wife in England. 
 Saris wanted him to serve the company for that sum and such additional pay 
 as they might see fit to give. But Adams, whom the Dutch, Spanish and 
 Portuguese, were all anxious to engage in their service, insisted upon a stip- 
 ulated hire. He asked twelve pounds a month, but consented to take 4 
 nundred pounds a year, to be paid at the end of two years. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL RETROSPECT. NEW PERSECUTION. EDICT OP BANISHMENT 
 
 AGAINST THE MISSIONARIES. — CIVIL WAR BETWEEN FIDE JORI AND OGO- 
 
 SHO-SAMA. TRIUMPH OF OGOSHO-SAMA. HIS DEATH. PERSECUTION 
 
 MORE VIOLENT THAN EVER. MUTUAL RANCOR OF THE JESUITS AND THE 
 
 FRIARS. PROGRESS OF MARTYRDOM. THE ENGLISH AND DUTCH. — A. D. 
 
 1613—1620. 
 
 Between the edict of Taiko-Sama against the Catholics, and those 
 the issue of which by Ogosho-Sama is briefly alluded to in the pre- 
 ceding chapter, sixteen years had elapsed, during the whole of 
 which time the missionaries and the Catholic Japanese had been 
 kept in a state of painful uncertainty. 
 
 It is true that the new emperor had greatly relaxed from the 
 hostility of his predecessor, and seemed at times decidedly favor- 
 able. In many parts of Japan the Catholic worship was carried 
 on as openly as ever. Many new laborers, both Jesuits and others, 
 had come into the field, and conversions still continued to be made 
 among persons of the highest rank. There was scarcely any part 
 of the empire in which converts were not to be found, and the mis- 
 sionaries occasionally penetrated into the most remote provinces. 
 The general of the Jesuits had been encouraged to raise Japan to 
 the dignity of a province, of which China and the neighboring 
 regions had been made a part, and of which Father Valentine Car- 
 vilho was made provincial. Japan had also a resident bishop, or 
 at least coadjutor, in the person of Father Louis Serqueyra, him- 
 self taken from the order of the Jesuits ; and under the bishop, as 
 we have seen, were a few secular clergy. By a brief of Pope 
 Paul V., just published in Japan, that empire had been opened to 
 the members of all the religious orders of the church, with liberty 
 to proceed thither by way of Manilla as well as of Macao. 
 
 Yet, during these sixteen years, the Catholics of ehe different 
 subordinate kingdoms had been more or less exposed to persecution 
 
 
176 JAPAN. — A. D. 1613—1620. 
 
 especially in the island of Ximo, where they were most numerous, 
 and which, from being mainly ruled by converted princes, was now 
 chiefly governed by apostates or infidels ; nor could the favor of 
 the emperor be at any time certainly relied upon. 
 
 The new Dutch and English visitors were prompted no less by 
 religious than by mercantile jealousies and hatreds to do all they 
 could to diminish the credit of the Catholic missionaries ; and it is 
 by no means improbable that, as the Portuguese asserted, their sug- 
 gestions had considerable weight in producing the new perse- 
 cuting edicts of Ogosho-Sama. Indeed, they had only to confirm 
 the truth of what the Portuguese and Spanish said of each other 
 to excite in the minds of the Japanese rulers the gravest distrust 
 as to the designs of the priests of both nations. 
 
 The edicts already mentioned were followed by another, about 
 the beginning of the year 1614, of which the substance was that all 
 priests and missionaries of the Catholic faith should forthwith 
 depart the empire, that all their houses and churches should be 
 destroyed, and that all the Japanese converts should renounce the 
 foreign faith. 
 
 There were in Japan when this edict was issued about a hundred 
 and thirty Jesuits, in possession of some fifty schools, colleges 
 and convents, or houses of residence, also some thirty friars of the 
 three orders of St. Augustin, St. Dominic and St. Francis, besides 
 a few secular ecclesiastics, or parish priests. Most of them were 
 shipped off at once. Some found means to return in disguise ; 
 but the new persecution speedily assumed a character far more 
 alarming than any of the former ones. Severe measures were now 
 taken against the native converts. Those who refused to renounce 
 their faith were stripped of their property, those of the most illus- 
 trious rank, among whom was Ucondono, being shipped off to Ma- 
 nilla and Macao, and others sent into a frightful sort of Siberian 
 banishment among the mountains of Northern Japan, now first 
 described in the letters of some of the missionaries who found their 
 way thither to console and strengthen these exiles. Many, also, 
 were put to death, most of whom exhibited in the midst of tor 
 ments all the firmness of the national character. 
 
 The violence of this, persecution was interrupt l d for a moment 
 6y an attempt on the part of Fide Jori, now grown to man'a 
 
XOGUN-SAMA. 177 
 
 estate, to recover his father's authority — a rebellion in which 
 many of the converts joined in hopes of gaining something by the 
 change. 
 
 On the 10th of December, 1614, Cocks, the English resident 
 at Firando, wrote to Saris that, since his departure, the emperor 
 had banished all Jesuits, priests, friars and nuns, out of Japan, 
 and had pulled down and burned all their churches and monasteries, 
 shipping them away, some for Macao and others for Mtnilla ; that 
 old king Foyne was dead, on which occasion three of his servants 
 had cut themselves open to bear him company, according to a com- 
 mon Japanese fashion of expressing attachment and gratitude ; 
 that a civil war had broken out between the emperor and his im- 
 prisoned son-in-law ; and that all Osaka, except the castle, where 
 the rebels were entrenched and besieged, had been burned to the 
 ground. Jedo had also suffered exceedingly by a terrible tuffon 
 or hurricane, which the Christians ascribed to the judgment of 
 God, and the pagan Japanese to the conjurations of the Jesuits. 
 Sayer, another of the English Company, wrote, December 5, 
 1615, that the emperor had got the victory, with the loss — doubt- 
 less exaggerated — of four hundred thousand men on both sides. 
 
 The death of Ogosho-Sama * in 1616, left his son Xogun-Sama 
 sole emperor. He continued to reside at Jedo, which, thenceforth, 
 became the capital. He diligently followed up the policy of his 
 three predecessors, — that of weakening the particular kings and 
 princes so as to reduce them to political insignificance ; nor does it 
 appear that, from that time to this, the empire, formerly so turbu- 
 lent, has ever been disturbed by civil wars, or internal commo- 
 tions. He also began that system of foreign policy since pushed to 
 such extremes. The English, by a new version of their privileges,! 
 were restricted to the single port of Firando, while the new emperor 
 
 * He was deified, and is still worshipped under the name of Gonsen-Sama, 
 given to him after his death. It is from him that the reigning emperors of 
 Japan trace their descent. He is buried at the temple of Niko, built in 
 1636, three days' journey from Jedo, of the splendor of which marvellous 
 stories are told. Caron, who wrote about the time it was built, speaks as if 
 he hud seen it. In 1782, M. Titsingh, then Dutch director, solicited per- 
 mission to visit this temple, but was refused, as there was no precedent for 
 such a favor. 
 
 t These modified privileges have been printed for the first time by Rumlall- 
 
178 JAPAN. — A. D. 1613—1620. 
 
 positively refused to receive a present from the viceroy of New 
 Spain, or to see the persons who brought it. 
 
 At the commencement of the new reign, there were yet con- 
 cealed within the empire thirty-three Jesuits, sixteen friars of the 
 three orders, and seven secular priests, who still continued to min- 
 ister to the faithful with the aid of a great number of native 
 catechists. Seven Jesuits and all the friars but one were in Naga- 
 saki and its environs. Of the other Jesuits, several resided in the 
 other imperial cities where they still found protectors, while the 
 rest travelled from place to place as their services were needed. 
 Those at Nagasaki were disguised as Portuguese merchants, who 
 were still allowed full liberty to trade ; while those in the provinces 
 adopted the shaven crowns and long robes, the ordinary guise of 
 the native bonzes. After a while some of them even ventured to 
 resume the habits of their order, and to preach in public ; but this 
 only drew out from the emperor a new and more formal and pre- 
 cise edict. It was accompanied with terrible menaces, such as 
 frightened into apostasy many converts who had hitherto stood out, 
 and even drove some of them, in order to secure favor for them- 
 selves, to betray the missionaries, who knew no longer whom to 
 trust. 
 
 The missionaries sent home lamentable accounts of their own 
 sufferings and those of their converts, and all Catholic Europe 
 resounded with lamentations over this sudden destruction of what 
 had long been considered one of the most nourishing and encourag- 
 ing provinces of missionary labor, not unmingled, however, with 
 exultations over the courage and firmness of the martyrs.* 
 
 * Lopo de Vega, the poet, who held the office of procurator fiscal to the apos 
 tolic chamber of the archbishopric of Toledo, celebrated the constancy of the 
 Japanese martyrs, in a pamphlet entitled, Triumpho de la Fe en los Regnos del 
 Japon, pas los annos de 1614 and 1615, published in 1617. " Take away from 
 this work," says Charlevoix, " the Latin and Spanish vei-ses, the quotations 
 foreign to the subject, and the flourish of the style, and there will be nothing 
 left of it. ' ' The subject was much more satisfactorily treated by Nicholas Tri- 
 gault, himself a very distinguished member of the Chinese mission, which he 
 had joined in 1610. He returned to Europe in 1615, travelling on foot through 
 Persia, Arabia and Egypt, to obtain a fresh supply of laborers. Besides an 
 account of the Jesuit mission to China (from which, next to Marco Polo's 
 travels, Europe gathered its first distinct notions of that empire), and a sum- 
 
MARTYRDOMS. 179 
 
 Such, indeed, was the zeal for martyrdom on the part of the Jap- 
 anese, in which they were encouraged by the friars, and which the 
 Jesuits strove in vain to keep within some reasonable limits, as to 
 lead to many acts of imprudence, by which the individual was glori- 
 fied, but the church damnified. Henceforth the missionary letters, 
 which still found their way to Home, though in diminishing numbers 
 and with decreasing regularity, contain little but horrible accounts of 
 tortures and martyrdoms, mingled, indeed, with abundant exultations 
 over the firmness and even the jubilant spirit with which the victims 
 met their fate, now by crucifixion, now by the axe, and now by fire. 
 Infinite were the prayers, the austerities, the fasts, the penitential 
 exercises, to which the converts resorted in hopes to appease the 
 wrath of Heaven. Even infants at the breast were made to bear 
 their share in them, being allowed to nurse but once a day, in the 
 hope that God would be moved by the cries of these innocents to 
 grant peace to his church. But, though many miraculous things 
 
 mary of the Japanese mission from 1609 to 1612, published during this visit 
 to Europe, just before his departure in 1618 (taking with him forty-four mis- 
 sionaries, who had volunteered to follow him to China) , he completed four books 
 concerning the triumphs of the Christians in the late persecution in Japan ; 
 to which, while at Goa, on his way to China, he added a fifth book, bringing 
 down the narrative to 1616. The whole, derived from the annual Japanese let- 
 ters, was printed in 1623, in a small quarto of five hundred and twenty pages, 
 illustrated by numerous engravings of martyrdoms, and containing also a short 
 addition, bringing down the story to the years 1617 — 1620, and a list of Jap- 
 anese martyrs, to the number of two hundred and sixty-eight. There is also 
 added a list of thirty -eight houses and residences (including two colleges, one 
 at Arima, the other at Nagasaki), which the Jesuits had been obliged to. 
 abandon ; and of five Franciscan, four Dominican and two Augustinian con- 
 vents, from which the inmates had been driven. These works of Trigault, 
 published originally in Latin, were translated into French and Spanish. 
 Various other accounts of the same persecution appeared in Spanish, Italian 
 and Portuguese. A Brief Relation of the Persecution lately made against 
 the Catholic Christians of Japan was published at London, 1616. Mean- 
 while Purchas, in the successive editions of his Pilgrimage, gave an account 
 of the Japanese missions, Avhich is the best and almost the only one (though 
 now obsolete and forgotten) in the English language. That contained in the 
 fourth edition (annexed as a fifth part to the Pilgrimes), and published in 
 1625, is the fullest. Captain Saris, according to Purchas, ascribed the per- 
 secution to the discovery, by the Japanese, that the Jesuits, under the cloak 
 of veligion, were but merchants. 
 
180 JAPAN. ^— A. D. 1613— 1621. 
 
 are told of the martyrs, many of them, it is said, distinctly pro- 
 nouncing the name of Jesus and Mary after their heads were cut 
 off, the persecution continued to rage with unabated fury. 
 
 Whi]e the persecution of the Catholics was thus fiercely pur- 
 sued in Japan, the Dutch, not in those islands only, but throughout 
 the eastern seas, were zealously pushing their mercantile enter- 
 prises; and in Japan, as elsewhere, they got decidedly the 
 advantage of the English, their companions and rivals, in these 
 inroads upon the Portuguese and Spaniards. 
 
 The English at Firando bought junks and attempted a trade with 
 Siam, where they already had a factory, one of their first establish- 
 ments in the East ; and with Cochin China and Corea ; but 
 without much advantage. In 1616, two small vessels arrived 
 from England, one of 'which was employed in trading between 
 Japan and Java. The operations of the Dutch were on a much 
 larger scale. Not content with driving the Spaniards from the 
 Moluccas, they threatened the Philippines, and sent to blockade 
 Manilla a fleet, which had several engagements with the Span- 
 iards. Five great Dutch ships arrived at Firando in 1616, of 
 which one of nine hundred tons sailed for Bantam, fully laden 
 with raw silk and other rich China stuffs ; and another, of eight 
 hundred tons, for the Moluccas, with money and provisions 
 Several others remained on the coast to watch the Spanish and 
 Portuguese traders, and to carry on a piratical war against the 
 Chinese junks, of which they captured, in 1616, according to Cocks' 
 letters, not less than twenty or thirty, pretending to be English ves- 
 sels, and thus greatly damaging the English name and the chance 
 of a trade with China* 
 
 On a visit to Miako, in 1620, Cocks, as appears by his let- 
 ters, saw fifty-five Jarjanese martyred, because they would not 
 renounce the Christian faith ; among them little children of five 
 or six years old, burned in their mothers' arms, and crying to 
 Jesus to receive their souls. Sixteen others had been put to death 
 for the same cause at Nagasaki, five of whom were burned, and the 
 rest beheaded, cut in pieces, and cast into the sea in sacks ; but the 
 
 * Such was the charge of the English. The Dutch narratives, however, 
 abound with similar charges against the English. Both probably were true 
 enough, as both nations captured all the Chinese junks they met. 
 
CATHOLIC QUARRELS. 181 
 
 priests had secretly fished up their bones and preserved them foi 
 relics. There were many more in prison, expecting hourly to die; 
 for, as Cocks wrote, very few turned pagans. 
 
 Nagasaki had been from its foundation a Catholic city. Hith- 
 erto, notwithstanding former N edicts for their destruction, one or 
 two churches and monasteries had escaped ; but, in 1621, all that 
 were left, including the hospital of Misericordia, were destroyed. 
 The very graves and sepulchres, so Cocks wrote, had been dug up ; 
 and, as if to root out all memory of Christianity, heathen temples 
 were built on their sites. 
 
 One of the Jesuits wrote home that there was not now any question 
 as to the number of Jesuit residences in Japan, but only as to the 
 number of prisons. Even those who had not yet fallen into the hands 
 of the persecutors had only caves and holes in the rocks for their 
 dwellings, in which they suffered more than in the darkest 
 dungeons. 
 
 It is not necessary to give implicit credit to all which the con- 
 temporary letters and memoirs related, and which the Catholic his- 
 torians and martyrologists have repeated, of the ferocity of the 
 persecutors, the heroism of the sufferers, and especially of the mir- 
 acles said to be wrought by their relics. Yet there can be no 
 question, either of the fury of the persecution, or of the lofty spirit 
 of martyrdom in which it was unavailingly met. Catholicism 
 lingered on for a few years longer in Japan, yet it must be consid- 
 ered as having already received its death-blow in that same year in 
 which a few Puritan pilgrims landed at Plymouth, to plant the 
 obscure seeds of a new and still growing Protestant empire. 
 16 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 COLLISIONS OF THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH IN THE EASTERN SEAS. — THE ENG- 
 LISH RETIRE FROM JAPAN. — THE SPANIARDS REPELLED. PROGRESS OF THB 
 
 PERSECUTION. JAPANESE PORTS, EXCEPT F.IRANDO AND NAGASAKI, CLOSED 
 
 TO FOREIGNERS. CHARGES IN EUROPE AGAINST THE JESUITS. FATHERS 
 
 SOTELO AND COLLADO. TORMENT OF THE FOSSE. APOSTASIES. THE 
 
 PORTUGUESE CONFINED TO DESIMA. REBELLION OF XIMABARA. THE 
 
 PORTUGUESE EXCLUDED. AMBASSADORS PUT TO DEATH. A. D. 1G21— 1640 
 
 Already the relations of the Dutch and English, in the East 
 had assumed the character of open hostility. A letter from 
 Cocks, of March 10th, 1621,* complains that the Hollanders, hav- 
 ing seven ships, great and small, m the harbor of Firando, had, with 
 sound of trumpet, proclaimed open war against the English, both by- 
 sea and land, to take their ships and goods, and kill their persons 
 as mortal enemies ; that they had seized his boat, fired at his barks, 
 and had beset the door -of his factory — a hundred Dutchmen to 
 one Englishman — and would have entered and cut all their throats 
 but for the interference of the Japanese : all because Cocks had 
 refused to give up six Englishmen,' who had escaped from two 
 English ships which the Dutch had captured, and whom they 
 claimed to have back, representing them to the -Japanese as their 
 " slaves." 
 
 To sustain the English interest in the eastern seas, the English 
 East India Company, by great efforts, had fitted out, in 1617, the 
 largest expedition yet sent from England to the East Indies. It 
 consisted of the Royal James, of one thousand tons ; the Royal 
 Anne, of nine hundred; the Gift, of eight hundred ; the Bull, of 
 four hundred ; and the Bee, of one hundred and fifty tons ; and 
 
 * The date, as given by Purchas (evidently by a misprint), is 1610. 
 
COLLISIONS OF THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH. 18d 
 
 sailed from London under the command of Martin Pring, who, 
 twelve years before, following up the discoveries of Gosnold, had 
 entered and explored — the first Englishman to do so — Penobscot 
 bay and river, on the coast of what had since begun to be known 
 as New England. Pring sailed first for Surat, where the Company 
 had a factory, and where he assisted the native prince against the 
 Portuguese, with whom he was at war. On the 17th of June, 1618, 
 he arrived at Bantam, whence he proceeded, in September, to Jaca- 
 tra, a city of the natives, t\m site of the present Batavia. There he 
 received news that the Dutch in the Moluccas, not content with driv- 
 ing out the Spaniards, had attacked the English also, making pris- 
 oners of the merchants, whom they had treated with great harsh 
 ness. News had also reached England of these Dutch outrages, and 
 to make head against them, the Company, not long after Pring's 
 departure, despatched Sir Thomas Dale — also well known, to 
 readers of American history, as high-marshal of the colony of Vir- 
 ginia, one of its first legislators, and for three or four years its 
 deputy governor — with a fleet of six large ships, with five of which 
 he joined Pring in November, 1618, in the Bay of Bantam, assum- 
 ing the command of the whole, including others which he found 
 there. 
 
 Both fleets were in a very leaky condition, and after some skir- 
 mishing with the Dutch, and the capture of a richly-laden Dutch 
 ship from Japan, the English sailed for the coast of Coromandel, to 
 refit and to obtain provision, which could not be had on the coast 
 of Java. Having arrived at Musilapatam, Dale died there August 
 9th, 1619. Toward the end of the year, Pring, who succeeded 
 in the command, returned again towards the Straits of Sundaj 
 and on the 25th of January, 1620, met, off the coast of Sumatra, 
 three English % ships of a new fleet, from which he learned that four 
 others of the squadron to which they belonged had been surprised 
 while at anchor off the coast of Java, and taken by the Dutch ; 
 that another had been wrecked in the Straits of Sunda ; and that the 
 Dutch were in pursuit of two others, with every prospect of taking 
 them. 
 
 As the Dutch at Jacatra were three times as strong as the 
 three squadrons now united under Pring, and as three of his larg- 
 est ships were very leaky, and the whole fleet short of provisions, it 
 
184 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G21— 1640. 
 
 was resolved to send part of the vessels to a place at the north end 
 of Sumatra, in hopes to meet with the Company's ships on theif 
 way with rice from Surat, while Pring himself, with his leaky 
 vessels, should proceed to Japan — reported to be a good place 
 for repairs as well as for obtaining provisions. .Just at this 
 time the happy news arrived, brought by two vessels despatched 
 for that purpose from Europe, of an arrangement of the pending 
 dispute, and of the union of the Dutch and English East India 
 Companies into one body. • 
 
 Shortly after this welcome information, Pring sailed for Japan 
 with two of his leaky vessels, having made an arrangement to be 
 followed in a month by a united fleet of five English and five 
 Dutch ships. These ships were intended partly, indeed, for trade, 
 but their principal object appears to have been attacks upon 
 Manilla and Macao. ^ 
 
 All these vessels, the Unicorn excepted, arrived safely at Firando. 
 She was stranded on the coast of China, and her crew were the first 
 Englishmen known to have landed there. A joint embassy was sent 
 to the emperor with presents, which, notwithstanding the privileges 
 of trade, were expected from every vessel that came. Having com- 
 pleted his repairs, and leaving the other vessels behind him, Pring 
 sailed on the 7th of December, 1620, in the Royal James, for 
 Jacatra, carrying with him the news of the death of Adams, who, 
 having remained in the service of the Company, had never again 
 visited England.* 
 
 * From Jacatra Pring proceeded to England with a cargo of pepper. It 
 would seem that he had not forgotten his early voyages to the coast of 
 America, for while his ship lay in the road of Saldanha, near the Cape of 
 Good Hope, a contribution of seventy pounds eight shillings and sixpence 
 was raised among the ship's company, to endow a school, to be called the 
 East India School, in the colony of Virginia. Other contributions were 
 made for this school, and the Virginia Company endowed it with a farm 
 of a thousand acres, which they sent tenants to cultivate ; but this, like the 
 Virginia University, and many other public-spirited and promising enter- 
 prises, was ruined and annihilated by the fatal Indian massacre of 1622. 
 
 The Royal James carried also to England a copy in Japanese, still pre- 
 served in the archives of the East India Company, of Adams' will. With 
 commendable impartiality, he divided his property, which, by the inventory 
 annexed, amounted to nineteen hundred and seventy-two tael, two mas, fou* 
 
ENGLISH ABANDON THE TRADE. 18b 
 
 The arrangement with the Dutch was but of short duration 
 Fresh quarrels broke out. In 1623 occurred the famous massacre 
 of Amboyna, followed by the expulsion of the English from the 
 Spice Islands; and, about the same time, the Company atan- 
 
 kandarins (two thousand four hundred and sixty-five dollars and twenty- 
 nine cents) , equally between his Japanese and his English family ; the Eng 
 lish share to go, one half to the wife and the other half to the daughter, it 
 not being his mind — so Cocks wrote — " his wife should have all, in regard 
 she might marry another husband, and carry all from his child." By the 
 same ship Cocks made a remittance to the English family, having delivered 
 " one hundred pounds sterling to diverse of the Royal James' Company, 
 entered into the purser's books, to pay in England, two for one," — a very 
 handsome rate of exchange, which throws some light on the profits of East 
 India trade in those days. Adams' Japanese estate probably descended to 
 his Japanese son ; and who knows but the family survives to this day ? The 
 situation of this estate was but a very short distance from the spot where the 
 recent American treaty was made ; nor is the distance great from Simoda, 
 one of the ports granted by that treaty. The command of the fleet left 
 behind, on Pring's departure, devolved on Captain Robert Adams. Accord- 
 ing to Cocks' account, the crews, both Dutch and English, inferior officers 
 as well as men, were a drunken, dissolute, quarrelsome set. Rundall gives 
 a curious record of the trial by jury and execution of an Englishman of this 
 fleet, for the murder of a Dutchman ; and it seems the Dutch reciprocated by 
 hanging a Dutchman for killing an Englishman. Master Arthur Hatch 
 was chaplain of this fleet. Purchas gives (vol. i., part n., book x., ch. i.) 
 a letter from him, written after his return, containing a brief sketch of his 
 observations in Japan. Purchas also gives a letter from Cocks, which, in 
 reference to the kof k of rice, agrees very well with Titsingh's statement 
 quoted on page fifty-four. Cocks represents the revenues of the Japanese 
 princes as being estimated in mangoca (mankofk) of rice, each containing 
 ten thousand goca (kofk), and each goca containing one hundred gantas 
 (gantings), a ganta being a measure equal to three English ale pints. 
 
 Cocks states the revenue of the king of Eirando at six mangoca. He main 
 tained four thousand soldiers, his quota for the emperor's service being two 
 thousand. The income of Koskodono, formerly three, had lately been raised 
 to fifteen mangoca. That of the king of Satsuma was one hundred, and that 
 of the prince next in rank to the emperor two hundred mangoca. The value 
 of the mangoca was calculated at the English factory at nine thousand three 
 hundred and seventy-five pounds, which would make the kofk, or goca, worth 
 eighteen shillings and sixpence sterling, or four dollars and fifty cents, and 
 agrees very well with Caron's estimates of the kofk, which he calls cokien. 
 as worth ten Dutch florins, or four dollars. The estimates of Kampfei 
 and Titsingh, given on page fifty -five, are higher. 
 
 16* 
 
186 JAPAN. — A. D. 1621—1640. 
 
 * 
 doned the trade to Japan, after having lost forty thousand pounds 
 
 in the adventure. This massacre of Amboyna consisted hi the exe- 
 cution, by the Dutch, of ten or twelve factors of the ■ English East 
 India Company, on the charge of having conspired with some thirty 
 Japanese residents to seize the Dutch fort. One of these Japanese 
 having put some questions to a Dutch sentinel about the strength 
 of the fort, he and others of his countrymen were arrested on suspi- 
 cion, and by torture were compelled to accuse the English, who were 
 then tortured in their turn into accusing each other. The residence 
 of these Japanese at Amboyna is a proof, in addition to those 
 already mentioned, of the adventurous spirit of the Japanese of that 
 day, who had indeed a reputation for desperate daring, such as 
 might give some color to the suspicions of the Dutch* 
 
 Meanwhile the persecution continued as violently as ever. In 
 the year 1622 fourteen Jesuits were burnt at the stake, including 
 Spinola, a missionary of illustrious birth, who had been twenty 
 years in Japan. Two friars were also burnt, who had been found 
 on board a Japanese vessel from the Philippines, captured in 
 1620, by one of the English ships, the Elizabeth, employed in the 
 blockade of Macao, and by her commander carried to Firando. 
 The master and crew of the Japanese vessel, and many other native 
 converts, were executed at the same time. The Spaniards were sus- 
 pected of smuggling in missionaries, and were wholly forbidden the 
 islands. As a .greater security against this danger, by an edict, 
 issued in 1624, — shortly previous to which there had been a very 
 severe inquisition in Jedo and its neighborhood for concealed priests, 
 — all the ports of Japan were closed against foreigners, except 
 Firando and Nagasaki, of which Firando remained open to the 
 Dutch and English, Nagasaki to the Portuguese, and both to the 
 Chinese. At the same time was introduced the custom of requiring 
 an exact muster roll, and making a strict inspection of the crews of 
 all foreign vessels. By the same edict all the subjects of the Cath- 
 olic king, whether Portuguese or Spaniards, were banished the 
 country, however long they might have been settled there, and even 
 though they might have families by Japanese wives. 
 
 What aggravated the misfortunes of the Japanese church, and 
 
 * See Appendix F. 
 
SEVERITY OF THE PERSECUTION. 187 
 
 greatly diminished the dignity of its fall, was the still hot jealousy 
 and mutual hatred of the Jesuits and of the friars, inflamed rather 
 than quenched by all this common danger and suffering. The bishop 
 of Japan having died (it was said of grief, at the peril of his flock) 
 just as the persecution broke out, a most unseemly quarrel arose, 
 which was carried on for several years with great virulence, as to the 
 administration of the bishopric. It was claimed, on the one hand, by 
 Father Corvailho, the provincial of the Jesuits, under an authority 
 from the Pope ; and, on the other, by Father Pierre Baptiste, a Fran- 
 ciscan, as vicar-general of the archbishop of Manilla, to whose juris- 
 diction it was pretended the bishopric of Japan appertained. This 
 quarrel about the administration of the bishopric was finally settled 
 by the Pope in favor of the Jesuits. 
 
 The Jesuit seminaries in Japan being broken up, they had organ- 
 ized one at Macao for the education of Japanese ecclesiastics ; but 
 the severe penalties denounced against all priests coming into Japan, 
 and against all, whether natives or foreigners, who should shelter 
 them after their arrival, made the existence of the church, and the 
 celebration of divine service, every day more precarious. From 
 year to year it grew more and more difficult for new missionaries to 
 get landed, great as was the zeal for that service. Of those 
 who did land, the greater part were immediately seized and put to 
 death. Large rewards were offered to any person who would betray 
 or take a missionary. Those already hi the country lived in hourly 
 danger of arrest, forced to conceal themselves in cellars, holes and 
 caverns and the huts of lepers, exposing to tortures and death all 
 who might bring them food, or in any way assist in concealing 
 them. The greatness of their sufferings does not depend merely 
 upon the testimony of their own letters. Roger Gysbert, a Dutch 
 Protestant and a resident in Japan, between the years 1622 and 
 1629, wrote an affecting narrative of it, and the general fact is. 
 strongly stated in Caron's account of Japan written a few years 
 later. 
 
 Gysbert, in his narrative,* relates the martyrdom of more than 
 five hundred persons ; but there was a still larger amount of suf- 
 fering which terminated not in martyrdom, but in recantation. The 
 
 *It maybe found in Thevenot's Collection ofVoyages, also ir Voyages det 
 Indes, torn. v. 
 
188 JAPAN. — A. D. 1621-1640. 
 
 . , m 
 
 Japanese officers seldom exhibited any personal malice against die 
 Catholics. Their sole object was the extinction of that faith. They 
 made it a study to deny the crown of martyrdom so enthusiastically 
 sought, and by a series of protracted and ingenious tortures to force 
 a renunciation. For this purpose the prisoners were sprinkled with 
 water from the boiling sulphur springs, not far from Nagasaki, and 
 exposed to breathe their stifling odors. The modesty of the women 
 was barbarously assailed, and numerous means of protracted torture 
 were resorted to, ^uch as in general proved sooner or later success" 
 ful. Other means were employed still more efficacious. All natives 
 engaged in foreign trade were required to give in an exact state- 
 ment of their property, which, unless the proprietors would conform 
 to the national faith, was declared forfeited. It was even forbidden 
 that European merchants should lodge in the houses of any who 
 were or had been Catholics. At Firando and Nagasaki all heads 
 of families were obliged to swear, in the presence of an idol, that 
 there were no Catholics in their houses, and, according to the Jap- 
 anese usage, to sign this declaration with their blood. From 
 Melichor Santvoort, an old Dutchman, one of the companions of 
 Adams in the first Dutch voyage to Japan x and long a resident at 
 Nagasaki, the authorities were indeed satisfied to take instead a 
 declaration that he was a Hollander, — a circumstance which gave 
 occasion to the scandal at which Kampfer is so indignant, that the 
 Hollanders were accustomed to report themselves to the Japanese 
 authorities as not Christians, but Dutchmen. All who refused to 
 conform to the national worship were deprived of their employ- 
 ments, and driven out to live as they could among the barren moun- 
 tains. The seafaring people had been mostly Catholics, but no 
 Catholic was henceforth to be permitted to sail on board any ship. 
 So successful were these means, that although when Gysbert first 
 , visited Nagasaki, in 1626, it was said to contain forty thousand 
 native Christians, when he left it, in 1629, there was not one who 
 admitted himself to be such. 
 
 In the midst of these martyrdoms, the Jesuits were called upon 
 to suffer still severer torments, in new attacks upon their policy and 
 conduct in Japan, published throughout Europe: Father Collado, 
 a Dominican, for some time resident at Nagasaki, who returned to 
 Europe in 1622, was known to have gone home charged vith accu« 
 
FATHERS COLLADO AND SOTELO. 189 
 
 sations against the Jesuits ; by way of answer to which a memo- 
 rial was transmitted, prepared by the provincial Father Pacheco, 
 who, four years after, himself suffered martyrdom at the stake. 
 Nor was Collado their only assailant. Among those arrested in 
 1622, was Father Sotelo, that same enterprising Franciscan, of 
 whom already we have had occasion to make mention. Insisting 
 upon his character of legate from the Pope, he had disobeyed ' the 
 orders of his superiors, had sailed from New Spain to Manilla, and 
 had contrived to get a passage thence to Nagasaki, in a Chinese 
 vessel, under the character of a merchant. But the captain detected 
 and betrayed him ; he was immediately arrested and thrown into 
 prison, and in 1624 was put to death. 
 
 In 1628 there was published at Madrid what purported to be a 
 letter from Sotelo to Pope Urban VIII., written in Latin, dated just 
 before his martyrdom, and containing, under the form of a narrative 
 of his own proceedings, a violent attack upon the Jesuits, and their 
 conduct in Japan. Not liking to be thus attacked as it were by a 
 martyr from his grave, they denied its authenticity. A memorial 
 of Collado, printed in 1633, reiterated the same charges, to most 
 of which it must be admitted that the replies made on behalf of the 
 Jesuits, are entirely satisfactory.* 
 
 * A candid and conclusive answer to Sotelo, or the false Sotelo, as the 
 Jesuits persisted in calling him, was published at Madrid immediately after 
 the appearance of his letter by Don Jean Cevicos, a commissary of the holy 
 office, who was able to speak from personal observation. Cevicos had been 
 captain of the galleon St. Francis, the ship in which Don Rodrigo de Vivero 
 had been wrecked on the coast of Japan, as related in a former chapter. 
 After a six months' stay in Japan, and an acquaintance there with Sotelo, 
 Cevicos sailed for Manilla, was captured on the passage by the Dutch, but 
 recaptured by a Spanish fleet. Arrived at Manilla, he renounced the seas, 
 commenced the study of theology, was ordained priest, and became provisor 
 of the archbishopric of the Philippines. The business of this office brought 
 him to Spain, and being at Madrid when the letter ascribed to Sotelo ap- 
 peared, he thought it his duty to reply to it. A full abstract of this answer, 
 as well as of Sotelo's charges, may be found at the end of Charlevoix' 22?*" 
 t&ire du Japan. It appears, from documents quoted in it, that the mission- 
 aries of the other orders agreed with the Jesuits, in ascribing the persecution 
 mainly to the idea, which the Dutch made themselves very busy in insinuat- 
 ing, that the independence of Japan was in danger from the Spaniards 
 and the Pope, who were on the watch to gain, by means of the missionaries. 
 the mastery of Japan, as they had of Portugal and so many other countries 
 
190 JAPAN. — A. D. 1621—1640. 
 
 Finding that the means as yet employed had little effect upon 
 the missionaries and their native assistants, a new and more effect- 
 ual, because more protracted, torture was resorted to, known in 
 the relations of the missionaries as the Torment of the Fosse. A 
 hole was dug in the ground, over which a gallows was erected. 
 From this gallows the sufferer, swathed in bandages, was suspended 
 by his feet, being lowered for half his length, head downward, into 
 the hole, which was then closed by two boards which fitted together 
 around the victim so as to exclude the light and air. One hand 
 was bound behind the back, the other was left loose, with which 
 to make the prescribed signal of recantation and renunciation of 
 the foreign creed ; in which case, the sufferer was at once 
 released. 
 
 This was a most terrible trial indeed. The victim suffered under 
 a continual sense of suffocation, the blood burst from the mouth, 
 nose and ears, with a twitching of the nerves and muscles, attended 
 by the most intolerable pains. Yet the sufferer, it was said, lived 
 sometimes for nine or ten days. The year 1633, in which this 
 punishment was first introduced, the second year of a new emperor, 
 son of Xogun-Sama* and himself known as Toxogun-Sama, proved 
 more fatal than any previous one to the new religion. In the 
 month of August of that year forty-two persons were burnt alive in 
 various parts of Japan, eleven decapitated, and sixteen suspended 
 in the fosse. The Dutchman Hagenaar, who was at. Firando in 
 1634, states, in his printed voyages, that during the time of his 
 visit thirty-seven persons lost their lives at that place on the charge 
 of being Catholics. Five of these perished by the torment of 
 the fosse, others were beheaded, others cut to pieces, and others 
 burnt. 
 
 The charges made in the name of Sotelo against the Jesuits are of more 
 interest from the fact that, at the time of the Jansenist quarrel, they were 
 revived and reurged with a bitterness of hatred little short of that which had 
 prompted their original concoction. 
 
 A Spanish history of the Franciscan mission, full of bitter hatred against 
 the Jesuits, was published at Madrid in 1632, written clown to 1620, by- 
 Father Fray Jacinto Orfanel, who was arrested that year, and burnt two 
 years after, and continued by Collado, who was also the author of a Japanese 
 grammar and dictionary mentioned in the Appendix, A. 
 
 * Xogun-Sama seems to be only Sogun-Sarna, a title, not a name. 
 
REBELLION % OF SIMABARA. 191 
 
 What it last struck the deepest horror to the souls of the 
 feF survinng Jesuits, and was greatly improved in Europe to 
 the damage of the Company by its enemies, was the apostasy of 
 Father Christopher Ferreyra, a Portuguese, an old missionary, the 
 provincial of the order, and the administrator of the bishopric. He 
 was taken in 1633 at Nagasaki, and being suspended in the fosse, 
 after five hours he gave the fatal signal of renunciation. After 
 having been kept some time in prison, and given what information 
 he could for the detection of those of his late brethren still con- 
 cealed in Japan, he was set at liberty ; and, having assumed the 
 Japanese dress and a Japanese name, he lived for several years at 
 Nagasaki. He had been compelled to marry a Japanese woman, 
 who was very rich, being the widow of a Chinese goldsmith, who 
 had been executed for some offence ; but the Jesuits comforted 
 themselves with the idea that the marriage was never consummated ; 
 and they even got up a report that in his old age this renegade 
 brother recovered his courage, and having, on his death-bed, con- 
 fessed himself a Christian, was immediately hurried off to perish a 
 martyr by that very torment of the fosse, the terror of which had 
 first made and had so long kept him an apostate. But for this fine 
 story there seems to have been no foundation except the wishes and 
 hopes of those who circulated it. 
 
 As a further security against the surreptitious introduction of 
 missionaries, the policy was adopted, in 1635, of confining the Por- 
 tuguese sailors and merchants to the little artificial island of Deshna, 
 in the harbor of Nagasaki, a spot but just large enough to hold the 
 necessary residences and warehouses. Shortly after the issue of 
 this edict, the people of the kingdom of Arima, all of them still 
 Catholic except the king and the nobility, seeing no other hope, 
 broke out into • open revolt. They were headed by a descendant 
 of their ancient kings, and mustering, it is said, to the number of 
 thirty-seven thousand, took possession of the fortress ofXimabara, 
 situated about due east from Nagasaki, on the gulf of the same 
 name. Here they were besieged ; and the place being taken in 
 1637, those who held it were cut off to a man. 
 
 The Portuguese were accused of having encouraged this revolt ; 
 in consequence of which an edict was issued, in 1638, not only 
 banishing all the Portuguese, but forbidding also any Japanese 
 
192 . JAPAN. A. D. 1621—1640. 
 
 
 
 to go .out of the country. That edict as given by Kampfer, was 
 as follows : 
 
 "•No Japanese ship or boat whatever, nor any native of Japan, shall pre- 
 sume to go out of the country : whoso . acts contrary to this shall die, and 
 the ship with the crew and goods aboard shall be sequestered till further 
 order. 
 
 "All Japanese who return from abroad shall be put to death. Whoever 
 discovers a priest shall have a reward of 400 to 500 shueis of silver, and for 
 every Christian in proportion.* 
 
 " All persons who propagate the doctrine of the Catholics, or bear this 
 scandalous name, shall be imprisoned in the Ombra, or common jail of the. 
 town. 
 
 " The whole race of the Portuguese, with their mothers, nurses and what- 
 ever belongs to them, shall be banished to Macao. 
 
 "Whoever presumes to bring a letter from abroad, or to return after he 
 hath been banished, shall die with all his family ; also whoever presumes to 
 intercede for him shall be put to death. No nobleman nor any soldier shall 
 be suffered to purchase anything of a foreigner." • 
 
 The Portuguese ships of 1639 were sent back with a copy of this 
 edict, without being suffered to discharge their cargos. The corpora- 
 tion of the city of Macao, greatly alarmed at the loss of a lucrative 
 traffic, on which their prosperity mainly depended, sent deputies to 
 solicit some modification of this edict. But the only reply made 
 by the emperor was to cause these deputies themselves, with their 
 attendants, to the number of sixty-one persons, to be seized and 
 put to death, as violators of the very edict against which they 
 had been sent to remonstrate. Thirteen only, of the lowest rank, 
 were sent back to Macao, August, 1640, with this account of the 
 fate of their company.! 
 
 * A shuet of silver weighs about five ounces, so that the reward offered 
 was from $2000 to $2500. 
 
 • t A narrative of this transaction was published at Rome, in 1643. A short 
 but curious document, purporting to be a translation of a Japanese imperial 
 
 • edict, commanding the destruction of all Portuguese vessels attempting to 
 approach the coasts of Japan, is given in Voyages au JVoia, torn. iv. Ships 
 of other nations were to be sent under a strong guard to Nagasaki. [See 
 Appendix, Note I.] 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 POLICY OF THE DUTCH. — AFFAIR OF NUYTS. HAGANAAR'S VISITS TO JAPAN. 
 
 CARON'S ACCOUNT OF JAPAN. INCOME OF THE EMPEROR AND THE 
 
 NOBLES. — MILITARY FORCE. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL POSITION OF THE 
 
 NOBLES. JUSTICE. RELATION OF THE DUTCH TO THE PERSECUTION OP 
 
 THE CATHOLICS. THE DUTCH REMOVED FROM FIRANDO AND -CONFINED IN 
 
 DESIMA. ATTEMPTS OF THE ENGLISH, PORTUGUESE AND FRENCH, AT IN- 
 TERCOURSE WITH JAPAN. FINAL EXTINCTION OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH- 
 
 — A. D. 1620—1707. 
 
 Throughout the whole of the long and cruel persecution of the 
 Catholics, the Dutch had striven by extreme subserviency to re- 
 commend themselves to the favor of the Japanese, in hopes of 
 exclusively engrossing a trade which appears at this time to have 
 been more extensive and more lucrative than at any former period. 
 The Japanese, however, seem not to have been insensible to the 
 advantages of competition ; and, so long as the Portuguese com- 
 merce continued, they extended to the vessels of that nation a cer- 
 tain protection against the Dutch, and even preference over them. 
 The danger from Dutch cruisers appears to have caused the substi- 
 tution, for the single great carac of Macao, of a number of smaller 
 vessels ; nor were the Dutch, however urgent their solicitations, 
 allowed to leave Firando till such a number of days after the de- 
 parture of the Portuguese from Nagasaki as would prevent all 
 danger of collision. 
 
 Yet, however cringing the general policy of the Dutch East India 
 Company, their trade, through the folly of a single individual, was 
 near being exposed to a violent interruption. In the year 1G26, 
 Conrad Kramer, the head of the Dutch factory, was extremely well 
 received on his visit to Jedo, and was allowed to be present at 
 Miako during the visit of the emperor to the Dairi — an occasion 
 which drew together an immense concourse, and which, according 
 17 
 
 
19*4 JAPAN. — A. D. 1620—1707. 
 
 to the accouu.t that Kramer has left of it, was attended with vast 
 confusion * The annual visit to Jedo was made the next year by 
 Peter de Nuyts, who gave himself out as ambassador from the king 
 of Holland, and at first was treated as such ; but the Japanese hav- 
 ing discovered that he had no commission except from the council 
 of Batavia, sent him away in disgrace. 
 
 Shortly after Nuyts was appointed governor of Formosa. The 
 Dutch, following in the footsteps of some Japanese adventurers had 
 formed an establishment on that island, about the year 1620 "with 
 a view to a smuggling trade with China ; and, by erecting a fort at 
 the mouth of the harbor, had speedily obtained the exclusive con- 
 trol of it. Not long after Nuyts' appointment as governor, there 
 arrived two Japanese vessels, on a voyage to China. They merely 
 touched at Formosa for water, but Nuyts, to gratify the spite he 
 had conceived against the Japanese nation, contrived to detain 
 them so long that they missed the monsoon ; and having required 
 them, as the sole condition on which he would allow their entrance, 
 to give up their sails and rudders, upon one pretence and another, 
 he refused to return them, till at length the patience of the Jap- 
 anese was entirely exhausted. They numbered five hundred men ; 
 and at last, all their reiterated and urgent applications for leave to 
 depart being refused, they attacked the governor by surprise, over- 
 powered his household, and made him prisoner ; nor did the garri- 
 son of the neighboring fort dare to fire upon them for fear of killing 
 their own people. Thus the brave Japanese extorted liberty to 
 depart and indemnity for their losses, to which the Dutch assented, 
 notwithstanding their superior force, for fear of reprisals in Japan. 
 These, however, they did not avoid, for, as soon as the Japanese 
 reached home, the emperor put under sequestration nine vessels 
 with their cargoes, then at Firando, belonging to the Dutch East 
 India Company, and forbade any further trade with their agents. 
 Things remained in this state for three years, the Japanese, how- 
 ever, receiving as usual Dutch vessels which came from Batavia, 
 under the assumed character of belonging not to the East India 
 Company, but to private merchants. At last it was resolved tc 
 
 * This curious piece may be found in French, in the Voyages des Indes, 
 torn. v. 
 
haganaar' s visits. 195 
 
 seek an accommodation by surrendering up Nuyts to the mercy of 
 
 the Japanese, which was done in 1634. 
 Having obtained his unconditional surrender, they treated him 
 
 with great clemency ; for, though detained in custody, he was not 
 
 kept a close prisoner ; and, in return for this concession, the Com- 
 pany's ships were released, and their trade reestablished. The 
 liberation of Nuyts.was granted two years afterwards as a mark of 
 the .emperor's satisfaction, with a splendid chandelier among the 
 annual presents of the Company, and which was used as an orna- 
 ment for the temple-mausoleum of the emperors of the race of 
 Gongen-Sama, completed about that time. 
 
 In the solicitation for the release of Nuyts- both Haganaar and 
 Caron were employed, to each of whom we are indebted for some 
 curious memoirs of the state of Japan in their time. Haganaar 
 made three visits thither. The first included the last four months 
 of 1634. The second extended from September, 1635, to Novem- 
 ber, 1636 ; during which, he made a visit to Jedo, and was at the 
 head of the factory. The third was limited to three months in the 
 autumn of 1637. Of each of these visits he has given brief notes 
 in his printed travels* besides adding some observations of his own 
 to Caron's account of Japan. Firando, which he describes as a 
 town of thirty-six streets, had grown up suddenly, in consequence 
 of the Dutch trade — a single street producing more revenue to the 
 lord than the whole town formerly had done ; yet there were hard- 
 ly any merchants in the place, except those who lodged at the fac- 
 tory, and who were drawn thither from all parts by the Dutch 
 trade. 
 
 During Haganaar's second visit, the Dutch were called sharply 
 to account for having presumed to sell their silk at a higher rate 
 than that asked by the Portuguese, and a price was prescribed, 
 which they were not to exceed. Being deputed to visit Jedo, on 
 the business of Nuyts' release, Haganaar proceeded thither by sea, 
 and took lodgings at the house of a Japanese bonze, who was the 
 usual host of the Dutch. v The agency of the lord of Firando and 
 of his secretary was employed with several of the imperial counsel- 
 
 * Haganaar's travels may be found in Voyages des hides, torn, v., and a 
 flarrative f Nuyt's affair in Voyages au Nurd, torn iv. 
 
196 JAPAN. — A. D. 1620—1707. 
 
 x'ors, but owing, as it would seem, to a deficiency of presents, with, 
 out success. Caron arranged this matter more successfully the next 
 year. From Jeclo to Osaka Haganaar travelled by land, and from 
 Osaka by water to Firando, where, during his absence, thirteen or 
 fourteen persons had suffered death because they belonged to Cath- 
 olic families. He notes that the Japanese whale fishery, for the 
 season of 1636, resulted in the capture of two hundred and seventy- 
 four whales ; which, however, were much smaller and less fat than 
 the Greenland whales, and were taken more for food than oil. 
 Shortly after his return to Firando, news came of an order from 
 court that all the Portuguese half-castes — that is, descendants of 
 Portuguese by Japanese women — should be shipped off with their 
 wives and children to Macao. 
 
 Returning to Japan a third time, in 1637 — in the seventh Dutch 
 ship which arrived that year — Haganaar heard that Admiral Wod- 
 dell was at Nagasaki with four richly-laden English ships. They 
 had been refused entrance into Macao, and had come thence to 
 Japan, but could not obtain permission to trade, nor even to land. 
 Six Portuguese galliots had also arrived from Macao with full car- 
 goes of rich silks, which were sold, however, at little profit. Yet 
 they were reported to have carried back, in return, two thousand six 
 hundred chests of silver, or more than three millions of dollars. 
 
 To relieve the necessities of the Dutch governor of Formosa, who 
 was engaged in hostilities with the natives, and had been obliged to 
 borrow of Chinese traders, at the rate of three per cent, a month, 
 Haganaar was despatched thither with four ships and four hundred 
 and fifty chests of silver, of which two hundred had been borrowed 
 at Miako of Japanese capitalists, at twenty-four per cent, per 
 annum. The following year he returned to Holland, where he soon 
 after printed his voyages, and along with them the answers made 
 by Francis Caron to a series of questions which had been submitted 
 to him by the director of the Company, and which throw not a little 
 light upon the condition of Japan at this time. 
 
 Caron, born in Holland of French parents, had originally gone to 
 Japan quite young, Kampfer says, as cook of a Dutch ship. Bad 
 treatment caused him to quit the ship in Japan, where he was pres- 
 ently taken into the service of the Dutch factory, and taught read- 
 ing, writing and accounts. He gave evidence of remarkable abili- 
 
PRODUCE AND INCOME. 197 
 
 ties, and rose in time to the head of the establishment. He spoke 
 the language fluently, had married a Japanese wife, and from the 
 liberty of intercourse then allowed, and his long residence in the 
 country, enjoyed means of information which no European has since 
 
 In describing the political state of Japan, Caron gives the names, 
 residences and revenues, of thirty-two princes, that is, rulers of one 
 or more provinces (spoken of in the earlier relations as kings), of 
 whom the prince of Kanga, who was also ruler of two other prov- 
 inces, had a revenue of one hundred and nineteen mankokf, and the 
 others revenues varying from seventy to eighteen mankokf. He 
 adds the names, residences and incomes, of one hundred and seven 
 other lords, twenty of whom had revenues of from fifteen to seven 
 mankokf, and the others of from six to two mankokf. Another 
 list contains the names of forty-one lords, with revenues of from one 
 to two mankokf; and in a fourth list, he enumerates sixteen lords at- 
 tached to the imperial court, of whom the first four had from fifteen 
 to nine mankokf, and the others from six to one mankokf. The 
 total revenues of these one hundred and ninety-six great nobles 
 amounted to nineteen thousand three hundred and forty-five man- 
 kokf, exclusive of nine thousand mankokf of imperial revenue, of 
 which four thousand were employed in the maintenance of the 
 court, and the remainder in the support of the imperial guard, all of 
 whom were nobles, many of them children of the concubines of the 
 emperors and great princes, and excluded on that account from the 
 prospect of succession.* Thus the total annual revenues of the 
 great landed proprietors of Japan amounted to twenty-eight million 
 three hundred and forty-five thousand kokfs of rice, equal to about 
 ninety million cwt., or one hundred and thirty-three million five 
 hundred thousand bushels ; nor is it probable that in this respect 
 there has been much change from that time to this.t Caron gives 
 
 * According to Titsingh, they amounted in his time (1780) to eighty thou- 
 sand in number. Apparently they are the Dosiu, or imperial soldiers, of 
 whom we shall have occasion hereafter to speak. 
 
 t This quantity of rice would suffice for the support of twelve million rer- 
 
 more. The cultivators of the imperial domains retained, according 
 
 tu Kampfer, six tenths of the produce, and those who cultivated the lards 
 
 of inferior lords four tenths. Hence it may be conjectured that the estimate 
 
 of twenty-five millions of people for Japan, is not excessive. 
 
198 JAPAN. — A. D. 1620—1707. 
 
 as the current value of the kokf, or, as he calls it, cold en, ten 
 guilders (or four dollars), which would make the mankokf equal to 
 one hundred thousand florins (forty thousand dollars), or what the 
 Dutch called a ton of gold. The prince of Satsuma, who was lord 
 also of four other provinces, is put down in the above lists at sixty- 
 four mankokf, the prince of Fisen at thirty-six, and the lord of 
 Firando at six.* 
 
 These revenues arose in part from mines of gold, silver, copper, 
 iron, tin and lead, from timber, hemp, cotton and silk, and from 
 fisheries ; but chiefly from the rice and other crops. There were no 
 taxes or duties in Japan, except ground rents for lands and houses, 
 payable in produce or money, and in personal services. All these 
 nobles had residences at Jedo, in the precinct of the imperial palace, 
 in which their children resided as hostages for their fidelity. For 
 eac)i thousand kokfs of revenue these lords furnished on demand 
 twenty foot soldiers and two horsemen, and maintained them dur- 
 ing the campaign, exclusive of the necessary servants and camp 
 followers. The whole of their quotas, or of the feudal militia of 
 Japan, thus amounted to three hundred and sixty-eight thousand 
 foot, and thirty-eight thousand eight hundred horse, in addition to 
 a standing army of one hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand 
 horse, maintained by the emperor from his own revenues, as garri- 
 sons and guards. The princes, however, prided themselves on keep- 
 ing up many more troops than their regular quotas. To every five 
 men there was an officer. Five of these sections composed a platoon, 
 which had its commander. Two platoons made a company, which 
 had its captain. Five of these companies, of fifty privates and thir- 
 teen officers, composed a battalion of two hundred and fifty rank 
 and file, with its special officer ; and ten battalions a division of 
 two thousand five hundred men. The civil division was much the 
 same. Every five houses had an inspector, who kept a register of 
 all births and deaths, and every street its magistrate and watch. 
 
 Though the revenues of the nobles were great, their expenses 
 were still more so. They were obliged to pass six months at the 
 imperial court ; those of the northern and eastern provinces during 
 
 * These lists were doubtless copied from the Jedo Kagami (Mirror of 
 Jedo), a kind of Blue Book, still published twice a year, and containing sim- 
 ilar lists. See Annals des Empereurs du Japon (Titsingh and Klaproth) 
 page 37, note. 
 
PRINCES AND NOBLES. 199 
 
 one half the year, those of the southern and western provinces dur- 
 ing the other half. They travelled in great state, some of them 
 with not less than four or five thousand men in their suite, and, on 
 their arrival and departure, gave great entertainments. The prince 
 of Firando, though one of the lesser class, was always attended in 
 his journeys by at least three hundred men, and entertained in his 
 two houses at Jedo more than a thousand persons. What with 
 their households, the clothing of their followers, their women, of 
 whom they entertained a great number, their children, — the prince 
 of Mito, the emperor's uncle, had fifty-four boys, and daughters 
 still more numerous, — presents and festivals, their expenses gener- 
 ally exceeded their incomes ; and, besides, they were often required 
 to furnish workmen, at. the demand of the emperor, for building new 
 castles, temples, or anything he might undertake. The honor of a 
 visit from the emperor was very highly esteemed. He seldom- paid 
 more than one to the same house. No expense was spared, and 
 years were spent in preparations, which often ruined those who 
 enjoyed this honor. The visit made by the emperor to the Dairi 
 at Miako, once in seven years, was a still more magnificent affair. 
 
 The emperor maintained on the estate of each noble a secretary, 
 in fact a spy, sent nominally to assist and advise him in the man- 
 agement of his affairs. Those selected for this service were gener- 
 ally persons educated at court, and of known fidelity, who, before 
 their departure, signed with their blood a promise to keep the em- 
 peror fully informed of the affairs and actions of the prince to whom 
 they were sent. 
 
 The marriages of the nobles were arranged by the emperor. The 
 wife thus given was entitled to great respect. Her sons alone suc- 
 ceeded to the lordship, which, in case she had none, was generally 
 transferred to some other family. The children by the numerous 
 concubines of the nobles had no share in the inheritance, and were 
 often reduced to beggary. Besides concubines, free indulgence 
 was allowed with the courtesans maintained by the lords of each dis- 
 trict for public use. The lawful wives lived in splendid seclusion, 
 attended by troops of female servants. Of women's rights the 
 Japanese nobles had no very high idea. Not only the strictest 
 chastity was expected from them, but entire devotion to their hus- 
 bands, .-nd abstinence from any intermeddling with business or pol- 
 
200 JAPAN. — A. D. 1620—1707. 
 
 ltics; the Japanese opinion being — in which Caron seems fully 
 to coincide — that women are only made for the pleasure of the 
 men and to bring up children. The children, though treated with 
 great indulgence, were exceedingly respectful to their parents. 
 
 The emperor had in every city and village officers for the admin- 
 istration of justice; but every householder had the right to dispense 
 punishments in his own family. Justice was very strict and severe, 
 especially in cases of theft ; and for crimes against the state the 
 punishment extended to the whole family of the offender. The 
 nobles and military, in case they were convicted of crimes, enjoyed 
 the privilege of cutting themselves open. Merchants and mechanics 
 were held in mean esteem, — the former as cheats and. tricksters, 
 the latter as public servants. The cultivators were little better 
 than slaves. 
 
 The account which Caron gives of domestic manners corresponds 
 sufficiently well with the more extended observations to be quoted 
 hereafter from subsequent observers. He did not regard the Jap- 
 anese as very devout. The persecution against the Catholics he 
 describes as equal to anything in ecclesiastical history. He partic- 
 ularly admired the steadiness and constancy of many young children 
 of ten or twelve years. AH the inhabitants were required once a 
 year to sign a declaration that they were good Japanese, and that 
 the Catholic religion was false. The Catholics had amounted to 
 four hundred thousand ; and their number was still considerable .* 
 
 The Dutch had all along stimulated the Japanese against the 
 Portuguese. All missionaries bound for Japan, found on board of 
 Portuguese and Spanish prizes taken in the neighboring seas, had 
 been delivered into the hands of the Japanese authorities. The 
 Dutch had even assisted at the siege of Ximabara, for which they 
 had furnished a train of artillery, conducted thither by Kockebecker, 
 the head, at that time, of the Dutch factory. But they were far 
 
 * There are two versions of Caron's account of Japan, materially different 
 from each other; one with the original questions, as furnished by Caron him- 
 etlf to Thevenot, the other in the form of a continuous narrative, with large 
 additions by Haganaar. The first may be found in Thevenot's Voyages Curi- 
 euse, also in Voyayes au JVbfd, torn. iv. The other in Voyages des Indes, 
 torn, v., and an English translation of it in Pinkerton's collection, vol. vii. 
 
THE DUTCH SHUT UP IN DESIMA. 201 
 
 from realizing all the advantages which they had expected from the 
 expulsion of their rivals. They, too, had excited suspicions by 
 replacing their dilapidated wooden factory at Firaiado by a strong 
 stone warehouse, which had something of the aspect of a fortress. 
 In spite of their submissiveness in pulling down # this erection, their 
 establishment at that place was suddenly closed, and in 1641 the 
 Dutch factors were transferred to Nagasaki, where they were shut 
 up in the same little artificial island of Desirna, which had been 
 constructed to be the prison-house of the Portuguese. And to this 
 narrow island they have ever since been confined, with the excep- 
 tion of some occasional visits to Nagasaki and its environs, and an 
 annual journey, by the chief officers of the factory, to pay their 
 homage to the emperor at Jeclo — a ceremony which seems to have 
 been coeval with the first arrival of the Dutch. Hitherto the Por- 
 tuguese and the Dutch also had freely intermarried with the Jap- 
 anese ; but this intimacy now came wholly to an end, and even 
 the Dutch were thenceforth regarded rather as prisoners than as 
 friends. 
 
 What contributed to increase this jealousy of the Dutch was the 
 peace between Holland and the Portuguese, which followed the 
 assumption of the crown of Portugal by the house of Braganza, and 
 the separation of Portugal from Spain, in the year 1640. 
 
 Evidence of this very soon appeared. In the year 1643, the 
 Dutch sent two ships from Batavia, the Castricoom and the Bres- 
 kens, to explore the yet little-known northern coast of Japan, the 
 island of Jeso and the adjacent continent, and especially to search 
 out certain fabled islands of gold and silver, whence the Japanese 
 were said to derive large supplies of those metals. These vessels, 
 when off Jedo, were separated in a storm, and the Breskens, in need 
 of supplies touched at a fishing village in about forty degrees of north 
 latitude. The lord of the village, and a principal person of the 
 neighboring district, visited the ship with great show of friendship, 
 and having enticed the captain, Shacp, and his chief officers on 
 
 * A curious contemporary narrative of this affair is given, among other 
 tracts relating to Japan, in Voyages au Nord, torn. iv. It is not unlikely 
 that the military operations of the Dutch in the neighboring island of For- 
 mosa, and their strong fort of Zelandia recently erected there, might have 
 aroused the suspicions of the Japanese. 
 
*202 JAPAN. — A. D. 1620-1707. 
 
 shore, made them prisoners, bound them and sent them off to Nai abu, 
 near by. They were permitted to communicate with the ship, and 
 to obtain their baggage, but at first were treated with much rigor 
 on suspicion of being Spaniards or Portuguese. It being found, 
 however, that they paid no respect to the sign of the cross or to 
 pictures of the Virgin, it was concluded that they were Hollanders, 
 and they were treated with less severity. At Nambu they were 
 splendidly entertained, and in their twenty days' journey thence to 
 Jedo, in which they passed through a hundred well-built villages, 
 they had nothing to complain of except the inconvenience of the 
 crowds that flocked to see them. In every village they saw rewards 
 posted up for the discovery of Christians. Not being willing to 
 reveal the true object of their voyage, they stated themselves to 
 have been driven to the north in an attempt to reach Nagasaki. 
 It was plain, however, that their story about having come from 
 Batavia, and being in the service of the East India Company, was 
 not believed. It was suspected that they had come from Macao or 
 Manilla for the purpose of landing missionaries, and they were sub- 
 jected in consequence to numerous fatiguing cross-examinations, in 
 which a bonze assisted, who spoke Spanish, Portuguese, English 
 and Flemish, and whom they conjectured to be some apostate Euro- 
 pean. What increased the suspicions of the Japanese was, that five 
 Jesuits from Manilla had recently, in an attempt to reach Japan, 
 been arrested at the Lew Chew Islands, and sent thence to Jedo. 
 The Dutchmen were confronted with these Jesuits, to their great 
 alarm. They also feared, if the true object of the voyage came 
 out, being exposed to punishment not only for undertaking un- 
 authorized explorations, but for falsehood in concealing and mis- 
 representing their object ; but when the Japanese had learned from 
 Nagasaki that two Dutch ships had been sent on a voyage for the 
 exploration of Tartary, of which the factors represented theirs as 
 probably one, they excused their silence on that subject on the 
 ground of not having been properly understood and interpreted. 
 The factors at Nagasaki had been not less careful than themselves 
 to say nothing about the search for mines. 
 
 New interpreters were brought from Nagasaki, among them 
 another apostate, whom there are grounds for supposing was the 
 •x-provincial Ferreyra, between whom and the Jesuit prisoners they 
 
'VOYAGE OF THE BRESKENS AND CASTRICOOM. 203 
 
 witnessed a bitter scene of mutual reproaches. A great many rig- 
 orous cross-examinations followed. The Dutchmen were required 
 to sign a paper by which all the Company's property was pledged, 
 for their reappearance before the imperial tribunals at any time 
 that it might be discovered that they had landed missionaries. 
 Their having discharged some pieces of artillery from the ship was 
 insisted upon as a crime ; also their ship having sailed off without 
 waiting for them. The recent peace between Holland and Portugal 
 was pointedly alluded to, and even the search for mines seems to 
 have been suspected. The appearance of a ship on the east coast 
 of Japan, which proved to be the Castricoom, some of whose people 
 who landed were seized and sent to Jedo, gave rise to many new 
 interrogations. Elserak, the director, at length arrived, and, after a 
 separate examination, was confronted with them and signed the 
 paper above described, when the Dutch were finally released, after 
 an imprisonment of upwards of four months.* 
 
 The Castricoom, more successful, discovered the Kurule Islands, 
 Eetoorpoo and Ooroop, to which were given the names of State's 
 Islands and Company's Islands, and made some explorations of the 
 east coast of Jeso, and of Sagaleen, taken to be a part of it. The 
 information thus obtained, together with the two relations of Father 
 de Angelis, written in 1616 and 1621, was all that was known of 
 these regions till the explorations of Broughton and La Perouse, 
 towards the close of the last century. Grolownin's adventures 
 and experience there, as related in a subsequent chapter, bear 
 a very remarkable and curious resemblance to those of Captain 
 Schaep and his companions. Their release was acknowledged in a 
 solemn embassy from the Company, — that of Frisius. About the 
 same time, in 1647, a Portuguese embassy arrived in Japan, in hopes, 
 since the separation from Spain, of reviving the ancient commercial 
 intercourse ; but, though the ambassador was treated with respect, 
 his request was peremptorily declined. 
 
 A new emperor, a minor, having succeeded in 1650, the Dutch 
 Company sent "YVaganaar, in 1651, to congratulate him. Among 
 
 * There is an account of the voyage of the Castricoom in Thevenot's collec- 
 tion. It is also contained in Voyayes au J\~ord, torn. in. Charlevoix gives 
 h full and interesting abstract of the adventures of Captain Schaep and hia 
 companions, derived from two different French versions of a Dutch original : 
 but I know not where either the versions or the original can be found. 
 
204 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G20— 1707. 
 
 other presents he brought a Casuar, a strange bird of the ostrich 
 kind, from Banda, but the officers at Nagasaki would not suffer it 
 to be forwarded. During this visit there happened a terrible fire 
 at Jedo, by which two thirds of that city were laid in ruins. Some 
 violent disputes having arisen, and the Japanese having gone so far 
 as to take away the rudders of the Dutch ships, Waganaar went 
 on a second embassy to Jedo, in 1659. * 
 
 The establishment of the French East India Company by Colbert, 
 led to some projects for a French trade with Japan, especially as 
 Caron in some disgust had quitted the Dutch service, and enlisted 
 into that of France. A letter from Louis XIV. to the emperor 
 of Japan, dated in 1666, was prepared, and instructions for Caron, 
 who was to be the bearer of it ; but the project does not appear to 
 have been prosecuted.! [See Appendix, Note L] 
 
 In 1673, the English East India Company made an attempt at 
 
 * The journals of these embassies of Waganaar, Frisius and others, gener- 
 ally pretty dry documents, with extracts from Caron, furnished the basis for 
 the Memorable Embassies of the Dutch to the Emperors of Japan, a splen- 
 did folio with more than a hundred copper plates, published at Amsterdam 
 in 1669, purporting to be compiled by Arnold Montanus, of which an English 
 translation, made by Ogilvy, with the same cuts, appeared the next year at 
 London, under the title of Atlas Japone?isis, and a French translation, with 
 some additions and alterations, ten years later at Amsterdam. 
 
 The materials are thrown together in the most careless and disorderly man- 
 ner, and are eked out by drawing largely upon the letters of the Jesuit 
 missionaries. The cuts, whence most of the current prints representing Jap- 
 anese objects are derived, are destitute of any authenticity. Those repre- 
 senting Japanese idols and temples evidently were based on the descriptions 
 of Froez, whose accounts do not seem quite to agree in all respects with the 
 observations of more recent travellers. 
 
 The dedication of Ogilvy's translation outdoes anything Japanese in the 
 way of prostration, nor can the language of it hardly be called English. It is 
 as follows : "To the supreme, most high and mighty prince, Charles II., by 
 the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, king, defender of 
 the faith, &c. These strange and novel'relations concerning the ancient and 
 present state of the so populous and wealthy empire of Japan, being a book 
 of wonders, dedicated with all humility, lies prostrate at the sacred feet of 
 your most serene majesty, by the humblest of your servants, and most loyal 
 subject, John Ogilvy. " 
 
 t This letter, with the instructions and a memoir of Caron's on the subject,- 
 may be found in Voyages au JVbrd, torn. iv. Caron, who spent several years 
 in the French service in the East Indies, perished by shipwreck near Lisbon, 
 
EXTINCTION OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH.- 205 
 
 the renewal of tke trade with Japan, by despatching a ship thither 
 The Japanese, through the medium of the Dutch, kept themselves 
 informed, as they still do, of the affairs of Europe ; and the first 
 question put to the new comers was, how long since the English 
 king (Charles II.) had married a daughter of the king of Portugal. 
 Though otherwise courteously enough received and entertained, the 
 vessel was not allowed to sell her cargo. This refusal of intercourse 
 the English ascribed to Dutch jealousy ; but it probably was a step, 
 as will be seen in the next chapter, to which the Japanese did not 
 need any urging.* 
 
 Though the Catholics of Japan were effectually cut off from 
 all intercourse with Europe, the Catholic faith still lingered for a 
 good while in those parts of Ximo in which it had taken the deepest 
 root. So late as 1690, there were, according to Kampfer, fifty per- 
 sons, men, women and children (of whom three had been arrested in 
 1683), imprisoned at Nagasaki for life, or until they should renounce 
 the Catholic faith, and conform to the religious usages of the coun- 
 try. These were peasants, who knew little more of the faith which 
 they professed, except the name of the Saviour and the Virgin 
 Mary, which indeed, according to the Dutch accounts, was all that 
 the greater part of the Japanese converts had ever known. 
 
 To land in Japan, to strengthen and comfort the faithful there, 
 or at least to secure the crown of martyrdom in the attempt, long 
 continued an attractive enterprise to the more romantic spirits 
 among the religious orders of the Catholic church. Most of those 
 who undertook this adventure were known to have been seized and 
 executed soon after landing. The last effort of this sort appears to 
 have been made in 1707. From that time, and notwithstanding 
 the great revival, within fifty or sixty years past, of the missionary 
 spirit, Japan has remained even less attempted by missionary than 
 by mercantile enterprise. 
 
 on his return to France in 1G74. He was president of the Dutch factory at 
 the time of its removal to Desima ; and Kampfer undertakes to represent his 
 mismanagement as in some degree the cause of that removal. This story was 
 doubtless current at Desima in Kampfer's time, but probably it grew out of 
 disgust of the Dutch at Caron's having passed into the French service. 
 
 * A curious narrative of this visit is printed in Pinkerton's great collec- 
 tion, vol. vii. 
 
 18 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 PORTUGUESE TRADE TO JAPAN. — DUTCH TRADE. — SILVER, GOLD AND COP ■ 
 
 PER, THE CHIEF ARTICLES OP EXPORT. EXPORT OF SILVER PROHIBITED 
 
 CHINESE TRADE. — ITS INCREASE AFTER THE ACCESSION OF THE MANT- 
 
 CHEW DYNASTY. CHINESE TEMPLES AT NAGASAKI. < — A BUDDHIST DOCTOR 
 
 FROM CHINA. EDICT ON THE SUBJECT OF HOUSEHOLD WORSHIP. RESTRIC- 
 TIONS ON THE DUTCH TRADE. INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF CHINESE VISIT- 
 ORS TO NAGASAKI. THEIR OBJECTS. RESTRICTIONS ON THE CHINESB 
 
 TRADE. THE CHINESE SHUT UP IN A FACTORY. TRADE WITH LEW 
 
 CHEW. — A. D. 1512—1690. 
 
 Or the real value and extent of the trade which for some ninety 
 years the Portuguese carried on with Japan, and which was brought 
 to a final close in the year 1638, we have no means of forming any 
 very exact estimate. When we read in writers of two or three 
 centuries ago glowing accounts of immense commercial profits, we 
 must also recollect that, compared with the commerce of the present 
 day, the trade upon which these great profits were made was ex- 
 ceedingly limited in amount. 
 
 For more than half of the above period of ninety years the inter- 
 course of the Portuguese with Japan seems to have been reduced, 
 or nearly so, to a single annual ship, known as the great carac of 
 Macao, sent annually from that city, and laden chiefly with China 
 silks, every Portuguese citizen of Macao having the right, if he 
 chose to exercise it, of putting on board a certain number of pack 
 ages, as did also the Society of Jesus, which had a college and a 
 commercial agency in that city. Of this traffic the following ac- 
 count is given by Ralph Fitch, an intelligent Englishman, who was 
 in Malacca in the year 1588:* " When the Portuguese go from 
 Macao in China to Japan, they carry much white silk, gold, musk 
 and porcelains, and they bring from thence nothing but silver. 
 
 * For a further account of Fitch and his travels, see Appendix, note E. 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. - 207 
 
 They have a great carac, which goeth thither every year, and she 
 bringeth from thence every year about six hundred thousand crusa- 
 dos [not far from as many dollars] ; and all this silver of Japan, 
 and two hundred thousand crusados more in silver, which they 
 bring yearly out of India, they employ to their great advantage in 
 China ; and they bring from thence gold, musk, silk, porcelains, 
 and many other things very costly and gilded." # 
 
 If we allow to the Portuguese an annual average export of half a 
 million of dollars, that will make in ninety years forty-five millions 
 of dollars of silver carried away by the Portuguese ; for, according 
 to all accounts, they brought away nothing else. 
 
 * The China trade was shared at this time between the Portuguese of 
 Macao and the Spaniards of the Philippines. On the Spanish trade, and the 
 profits of it, some light is thrown by extracts from letters found on' board 
 Spanish prizes taken by the English, which Hackluyt translated and pub- 
 lished in his fourth volume. Thus Hieronymo de Nabores writes from Pana- 
 ma (Aug. 24th, 1590), where he was waiting for the ship for the Philip- 
 pines, — "My meaning is to carry my commodities thither, for it is 
 constantly reported that for every one hundred ducats a man shall get six 
 hundred ducats clearly." This, however, was only the talk at Panama ; 
 but Sebastian Biscanio had made the voyage, and he writes to his father from 
 Acapulco (June 20th, 1590) : "In this harbor here are four great ships of 
 Mexico, of six hundred or eight hundred tons apiece, which only serve to 
 carry our commodities to China, and so to return back again. The order is 
 thus. From hence to China is about two thousand leagues, further than 
 from hence to Spain ; and from hence the two first ships depart together to 
 China, and are thirteen or fourteen months returning back again. And when 
 these ships are returned, then the other twain, two months after, depart 
 from hence. They go now from hence very strong with soldiers. I can cer- 
 tify you of one thing : that two hundred ducats in Spanish commodities, and 
 some Flemish wools which I carried with me thither, I made worth fourteen 
 hundred ducats there in that country. So I make account that with those silks 
 and other commodities which I brought with me from thence to Mexico, I 
 got twenty-five hundred ducats by the voyage ; and had gotten more, if one 
 pack of fine silks had not been spoiled with salt water. So, as I said, there 
 is great gain to be gotten, if that a man return in safety. But the year 1588, 
 I had great mischance coming in a ship from China to New Spain ; which, 
 being laden with rich commodities, was taken by an Englishman [this was 
 Cavendish, then on his voyage round the world], which robbed us and after- 
 wards burnt our ship, wherein I lost a great deal of treasure and commodi- 
 ties." 
 
208 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542— 1G90. 
 
 Though the Spaniards were never allowed to trade to Japan, at 
 one period, as we have seen, a considerable number of Japanese 
 junks frequented Manilla for the purchase of Chinese goods ; but 
 this trade was brought to an end in 1624, in consequence of the 
 facilities which it afforded for the introduction of Catholic priests 
 into Japan. 
 
 The Dutch trade began in 1609. We have seen that in a short 
 time it gained a very considerable extent; and it increased, as 
 the trading establishments which the Dutch gradually obtained 
 in India and Persia, and that on the island of Formosa, whence 
 they had access to China, furnishing them with a supply of rich 
 silks, the great article of import into Japan. As the Portuguese 
 trade was carried on from Macao, so the Dutch trade was carried 
 on, not from Holland, but from Batavia. The year preceding the 
 shutting up of the Dutch in Desima is stated to have been the most 
 profitable of any. The previous average sales in Japan had been 
 about sixty tons of gold ; but that year the Dutch had imported 
 and disposed of goods to the value of eighty tons of gold (that is, 
 three million two hundred thousand dollars, a Dutch ton of gold 
 being one hundred thousand florins, or forty thousand dollars). 
 Among the exports were fourteen hundred chests of silver, each 
 chest containing one thousand taels, or near two million dollars in 
 silver alone. # About this time, however, owing to the comparative 
 
 * The tael, reckoning the picul at one hundred and thirty-tliree and one 
 third lbs. Avoirdupois, contains five hundred and eighty-three grains Troy. 
 Our dollar weighs four hundred and twelve and a half grains; and supposing 
 the Japanese silver to be of equal fineness, the tael is worth just about one dol- 
 lar and forty cents. Kampfer reckons it as equivalent to three and a half 
 florins, which is precisely one dollar and forty cents, taking the florin at the 
 usual valuation of forty cents. This, however, was rather above the valua- 
 tion of the Dutch East India Company. There were, it seems, two kinds of 
 . Japanese silver, known among the Dutch as heavy and light money, the lat- 
 ter sometimes distinguished as bar-silver. Both kinds were carried to 
 account without distinction down to the year 1635, at the rate of sixty-two 
 and a half stivers, or one dollar and twenty-five cents per tael. After that 
 period the bar-silver was reckoned at fifty-seven stivers, or one dollar and 
 fourteen cents per tael. Reckoning the tael, as the Dutch commonly did, at 
 one dollar and twenty-five cents of our money, and the mas is precisely 
 equivalent to the Spanish eighth of a dollar. This statement is derived from 
 
EXPOKT OF GOLD AND SILVER. 209 
 
 exhaustion of the silver, or the comparative increase of gold, that 
 metal became a leading, as, indeed, it seems to have been before a 
 considerable article of export with the Dutch. The gold kobang, the 
 national coin of the Japanese, weighed at this time forty-seven kant 
 derins, that is, two hundred and seventy-four grains Troy, which is 
 sixteen • grains more than our present eagle. But, if superior in 
 weight, the kobang was inferior in fineness, containing of pure gold 
 only two hundred and twenty-four grains, whereas the eagle contains 
 two hundred and thirty-two grains. It passed in Japan and was 
 purchased by the Dutch for six taels or less in silver, which enabled 
 them to .dispose of it to good advantage on the coast of Coromande*, 
 where the relative value of gold was much higher. In the two year:?, 
 1670, 1671, more than one hundred thousand kobangs were exported, 
 at a profit of a million florins ; and down to that time the Dutch 
 sent annually to Japan five or six ships a year. In 1644, the 
 export of copper began, and went on gradually increasing. In 1671, 
 an edict was issued, prohibiting the further export of silver ; but 
 
 a Dutch memoir by Imhoff, quoted by Baffles (History of Java, Appendix 
 B), and found by him, it would seem, among the Dutch records at 
 Batavia. Of the chests of silver and gold, particularly the former, so often 
 mentioned in the old accounts of the Dutch and Portuguese trade, I have 
 met with no description, except in Montanus's Memorable Embassies. 
 Unreliable and worthless as that huge volume generally is, its compilei's 
 certainly had access to valuable Dutch papers, and it is apparently from 
 that source that they have drawn what they say of the moneys, weights 
 and measures, of Japan. Of the chests of silver and gold they speak as fol- 
 lows : " Moreover, their paying of money is very strange ; for the Japanese, 
 having great store of gold and silver, observe a custom to receive their money 
 without telling or seeing it. The mint-master puts the gold in papers, which 
 contain the value of two hundred pounds sterling ; these, sealed up, pass from 
 one to another without being questioned. They also use little wooden boxes, in 
 which they put twenty sealed papers of gold, which is as much as a man 
 can handsomely carry ; every box amounts to four thousand pounds sterling; 
 and the like boxes, but of another fashion, they use for their silver, in every 
 one of which is twelve hundred crowns, and is sealed with the coiner's seal. 
 But doth it not seem strange that never any deceipt is found in that blind 
 way of paying money? " " The silver, though weighed and coined, is of nc 
 certain value. The coiners put it together into little packs worth sixty 
 crowns " — I suppose taels. Caron says, however, that these packages con- 
 tained, fifty taels. 
 
 18* • 
 
210 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1690: 
 
 this gave no concern to the Dutch, who had already ceased to 
 export it. Its principal operation was against the Chinese, who at 
 this time carried on a great trade to Japan. 
 
 Of the early commercial relations of China and Japan our 
 knowledge is very limited. As the Japanese, at an early era, 
 according to their own annals (constructed, it is probable, by Buddh- 
 ist priests), as early as a. d. 600, had received from China Buddh- 
 ist missionaries, and through them the language, graphic char- 
 acters, science, &c, of the Chinese, it would seem probable that 
 some commercial intercourse must have early existed between these 
 two nations. If so, however, the threatened Mongol invasion, tow- 
 ards the end of the thirteenth century, would have been likely to 
 have interrupted it. The - native Chinese dynasty, which succeeded 
 after the expulsion of the Mongols, was exceedingly jealous of all 
 strangers and hostile to intercourse with them. No foreign trade 
 was allowed, and every Chinese who left his country incurred 
 a sentence of perpetual banishment. It is true that the Chinese 
 colonists, that had emigrated, perhaps on the invasion of the Mon- 
 gols, and had settled in the neighboring maritime countries (as 
 others did afterwards on the invasion of the present Mantchew 
 dynasty), still contrived to keep up some intercourse with China, 
 while they carried on a vigorous trade with the adjacent islands 
 and countries ; but, at the time of the Portuguese discovery, no 
 such trade would. seem to have existed with Japan. 
 
 The Mantchew dynasty (the same now reigning) which mounted 
 the throne in 1644, was much less hostile to foreigners ; and under 
 their rule the Chinese trade to Japan appears to have rapidly 
 increased. This was partly by vessels direct from China, and 
 partly by the commercial enterprise of the Chinese fugitives who 
 possessed themselves of Formosa, from which, in 1662, they drove 
 out the Dutch, or who had settled elsewhere on the islands and 
 coasts of south-eastern Asia. 
 
 " They came over," says Kampfer, " when and with what num- 
 bers of people, junks and goods, they pleased, ft? extensive and 
 advantageous a liberty could not but be very pleasing to them, and 
 put them upon thoughts of a surer establishment, in order to which, 
 and for the free exercise of their religion, they built three temples 
 at Nagasaki, according to the three chief languages spoken by 
 
A BUDDHIST MISSIONARY. 21 1 
 
 them (those of the northern, middle and southern provinces), each 
 to be attended by priests of their own nation, to be sent o • er from 
 China." * 
 
 These temples, called, each in the special dialect of its frequent- 
 ers, "Temples of Riches" — the god which the Chinese chiefly 
 worship — are described by Kampfer, from his own observation, as 
 remarkable for their handsome structure, and the number of monks 
 or Buddhist clergy attached to them-" As soon as any Chinese ships 
 arrived in the harbor, the crews immediately took on shore the 
 idols, which formed a part of the ship's outfit, and placed them in 
 some small chapels, built for that purpose, near by the large tem- 
 ples, or convents as in fact they rather were. This was done with 
 uncommon respect and particular ceremonies, playing upon cym 
 bals and beating of drums, which same ceremonies were repeated, 
 when, upon the departure of the junks, the idols were carried on 
 board again. 
 
 Encouraged by this favorable reception of his countrymen, Ingen 
 who was at that time at the head of the Buddhist priesthood of 
 China, claiming to be the twenty-eighth in succession from the four 
 der of the Chinese Buddhist patriarchate, surrendered to a success;* 
 his high dignity at home, and, in the year 1653, came over to 
 Japan, there to establish a sort of caliphate or archiepiscopal see, 
 as Kampfer expresses it, of the particular branch or sect of the 
 Buddhist faith to which he belonged. " The princes and lords of 
 several provinces came to compliment him, clad in their kamisimo,i 
 or garments of ceremony. The emperor offered him for his resi- 
 dence a mountain in the neighborhood of the holy city of Miako, 
 which he called ObaJcu, the name of his former papal residence in 
 China. An incident which happened soon after his arrival contrib- 
 uted very much to forward his designs, and raised an uncommon 
 
 * These temples, built in Japan by the Chinese mei'chants, remind one of 
 the temples built in Egypt by the Greek merchants, who first opened a trade 
 with that country. See G rote's History of Greece, chap. xx. 
 
 t The kamidmo is a state dress, composed of two garments (kami signi- 
 fies what is above, and simo what is below), a short cloak, without sleeves, 
 rallied katagcno, and breeches, called vakama. Both are of a particular 
 *brm (the breeches being like a petticoat sewed up between the legs), and of 
 colored stuffs. They are used only on days of ceremony and at funerals. — 
 Titsingh. 
 
212 JAPAN. — A. D. 1542—1690. 
 
 respect for his person, and a great opinion of his ho Eness. After a 
 very great drought, the country people, his neighk rs, desired him 
 to say a kitoo, or extraordinary solemn prayer, in order to obtain 
 rain. He answered that it was not in his power to make rain, and 
 that he could not assure them that his kitoo would obtain it. 
 However, at their pressing instances, he promised to do his utmost. 
 Accordingly, he went up to the top of the mountain and made his 
 kitoo. The next - day there fell such profuse showers as even to 
 wash away the smaller bridges in the city of Miako, which made 
 both the city and country believe that his kitoo had been rather too 
 strong. His companions, who came over with him from China, had 
 likewise very great respect paid them, as more immediate partakers 
 of his glory; so that even a cook, who came over with this 
 learned and sanctified company, was raised to the dignity of supe- 
 rior of one of the three convents of Nagasaki, where, by his sub- 
 lime understanding and reputed great knowledge, he obtained," and 
 in Kampfer's time still held, " the name and repute of a Godo r that 
 is, a person blessed with divine and most acute understanding, 
 whom they suppose to be able to find out by his Satori, or Enthu- 
 siastic Speculations, such mysterious truths as are far beyond the 
 reach of common knowledge." 
 
 What tended to favor Ingen's design was an edict lately issued by 
 the emperor, aimed at the few remaining Catholics, and also at the 
 sect of the Siuto or Moralists, requiring everybody to belong to 
 some sect of the recognized religions of Japan, and to have a 
 Drusi in their houses — that is, a corner or altar consecrated to some 
 idol. Nevertheless, in spite of his favorable reception and eminent 
 learning and sanctity, Ingen failed to gain the submission of the 
 various Buddhist sects in Japan ; nor was his spiritual headship 
 acknowledged, except by the three Chinese convents. 
 
 Though the prohibition of the export of silver, mentioned as hav- 
 ing taken place in 1671, did not affect the Dutch, the very next 
 year the Japanese commenced a system of measures which, within 
 a quarter of a century, reduced the Dutch commerce to the very 
 narrow limit at which it has ever since remained. The first step 
 was to raise the value of the kobang to six tael eight maas of sil- 
 ver ; nor was this by any means the worst of it. The Dutch were 
 
RESTRICTIONS ON THE DUTCH TRADE. 21$ 
 
 no lo ager allowed to sell their goods to the native merchants. The 
 government appointed appraisers, who set a certain value on the 
 goods, much less than the old prices, at which valuation the Dutch 
 must sell, or else take the goods away. Anything which the goods 
 sold for to the Japanese merchants, over the appraisement, went 
 into the town treasury of Nagasaki.*. These appraisements grew 
 lower and lower, every year, till at last the Dutch, threatening, ii 
 things went on in this way,*to abandon th§ trade altogether, peti- 
 tioned the emperor to be restored to their ancient privileges, 
 assured to them "by the concession of G-ongin-Sama. After waiting 
 three years, they got a gracious answer. The appraisements were 
 abolished, but at the same time, in 1685, an order was suddenly 
 issued, limiting the amount which the Dutch might sell in any one 
 year to the value of three hundred thousand taels, or in Dutch 
 money to ten tons and a half of gold, equal to four hundred and 
 
 * Unfortunately for the English, their attempt at a revival of intercourse, 
 mentioned in the last chapter, was made the very year of the introduction 
 of this new check on foreign trade. The appraisement extended as well to 
 the Chinese as the Dutch cargoes, as is apparent from the following closing 
 paragraph of the English narrative : " During the time [July and August, 
 1672] we were in port, there came twelve junks in all, eight from Batavia, 
 two from Siam, one from Canton, one from Cambodia, and six Dutch ships 
 of the Company's. They had not any from Tycoun [Formosa], by reason 
 the year before they put the price upon their sugar and skins : and so they 
 intend to do for all other people, for whatsoever goods shall be brought to 
 their port ; which if they do, few will seek after their commodities on sueh 
 unequal terms." 
 
 There is strong reason to suppose that these new restrictions on foreign 
 trade grew out of the diminished produce of the mines, which furnished the 
 chief article of export. The working of these mines seems to have greatly 
 increased after the pacification of Japan by its subjection to the imperial 
 authority. Such is the statement in the Japanese tract on the wealth of 
 Japan, already referred to. According to this tract, the first gold coins were 
 struck by Taiko-Sama. This increase of metallic product seems to have 
 given, about the time of the commencement of the Dutch trade, a new im- 
 pulse to foreign commerce. Though the Portuguese trade had been stopped, 
 it had been a good deal more than replaced by the increase of the Chinese 
 traffic, and already the metallic drain appears to have been seriously felt. 
 This is a much more likely reason for the policy now adopted than the mere 
 personal hostility of certain Japanese grandees, to which the Dutch at Desi- 
 wufc, and Kampfer as their echo, ascribed it. 
 
214 JAPAN. — A. D. 1642— 1690. 
 
 twenVy thousand dollars. All the goods of any one year's importa- 
 tion, remaining after that amount had been realized, were to lay over 
 till the next annual sale. At the same time, the annual export of 
 copper was limited to twenty-five thousand piculs ; and so matters 
 stood at the time of Kampfer's visit. 
 
 The Chinese trade had meanwhile gone on increasing " to that 
 degree " — we quote again from Kampfer — "as to make the sus- 
 picious and circumspect Japanese extremely jealous of them. Ib 
 the years 1683 and 1684, there arrived at Nagasaki, in each year, 
 at least two hundred junks, every junk with not less than fifty 
 people on board, making for each year more than ten thousand Chi- 
 nese visitors." Nor was it trade alone that drew the Chinese 
 thither. In China, the women, except those of servile condition s 
 are kept in perfect seclusion. No man sees even the woman he is 
 to marry, till she has actually become his wife ; and courtesanship is 
 strictly forbidden and • punished. The case, as we have seen, is 
 widely different in Japan, and numerous young and wealthy Chinese 
 were attracted to Nagasaki, " purely for their pleasure," as Kampfer 
 observes, " and to spend some part of their money with Japanese 
 wenches, which proved very beneficial to that town," — truly a very 
 mercantile view of the matter ! 
 
 "Not only did this increasing number of Chinese visitors excite 
 jealousy ; but what still more aroused the suspicion of the Japanese 
 was, that the Jesuits, having gained the favor of the then reigning 
 monarch of China, [the celebrated Kanghi,] with the liberty of 
 preaching and propagating their religion in all parts of the empire, 
 some tracts and books, which the Jesuit fathers had found the 
 means to print in China, in Chinese characters-, were brought over 
 to Japan among other Chinese books, and sold privately, which 
 made the Japanese, apprehensive that by this means the Catholic 
 religion, which had been exterminated with so much trouble and 
 the loss of so many thousand persons, might be revived again in the 
 country," And they even suspected that the importers of these 
 books, if not actual converts, were at least favorers of the Catholic 
 doctrine. 
 
 These reasons combined to produce, in 1684, at the same time 
 with th: restrictions placed upon the Dutch, an edict, by which the 
 Chinese were limited to an annual importation, double the value 
 
RESTRICTIONS ON THE CHINESE TRADE. 215 
 
 of that allowed the Dutch ; namely, six hundred thousand taels, 
 equivalent to eight hundred and forty thousand dollars, the annual 
 number of junks not to exceed seventy, of which a specific number 
 was assigned to each province and colony, and each to bring not 
 more than thirty persons. Chinese books were, at the same time, 
 subjected to a censorship, two censors being appointed, one for theo- 
 logical, the other for historical and scientific works, none to be 
 imported without their approval. 
 
 This was followed up, in the year 1688, by another order, bv 
 which the Chinese were, like the Dutch,, shut up in a sort of prison 
 for which, like the Dutch, they were compelled to pay a heavy rent 
 The site chosen for this spot was a garden, pleasantly situated, 
 just outside of the town, on the side of the harbor opposite Desima, 
 It was covered with several tows of small houses, each row having 
 a common roof, and the whole was surrounded with a ditch and a 
 strong palisade, from which the only exit was through well-guarded 
 double gates.* Even here the Chinese had no permanent residence, 
 like the Dutch. They arrived in detachments, twenty junks iD 
 spring, thirty in summer, and twenty in autumn ; and, after selling 
 their goods, went away, leaving the houses empty. 
 
 Besides the trade with the Dutch and the Chinese, the Lew Chew 
 Islands were also permitted to carry on a particular trade with the 
 province of Satsuma, the prince of which they acknowledged as in 
 some respects their sovereign. The import and sale of their goods 
 was limited to the annual amount of one hundred and twenty-fivo 
 thousand taels, though, in Kiimpfer's time, a much larger amount 
 was smuggled in, large quantities of Chinese goods being thus 
 introduced. 
 
 ♦According to Titsingh, the Chinese factory was removed, hi 1780, to a 
 new situation, the site of an ancient temple. He gives a plan of the new 
 facto y after a Japanese draft. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 ENGELBERT KAMPFER. — HIS VISIT TO JAPAN. DESIMA AND ITS INHABIT- 
 ANTS AS DESCRIBED BY HIM. A. D. 1690. 
 
 Engelbert Kampfer was the first scientific and systematic observer 
 who visited Japan. Of those who have since followed him, but one 
 .or two had either^ his zeal, his assiduity, or his qualifications, and 
 it is to him that we remain indebted for no incoDsiderable part of 
 what we yet know of that country, especially of its natural history, 
 and its social, religious and political institutions. Subsequent vis- 
 itors, correcting him in some few particulars, have generally con- 
 firmed him. The Japanese, according to the most recent observa- 
 tions, appear to have changed very little since his time. 
 
 Kampfer was born Sept., 1651, in the north-west of Germany, in 
 the county of Lippe, at Lemgow, a small town of which his father 
 was minister. He was early destined for the profession of physic, 
 and, after the best, school education his father could give him, spent 
 three years at the university of Cracow, in Poland, and four years 
 more at that of Koningsburg, in Prussia. Thence he passed to 
 Sweden, where, inspired with a desire of seeing foreign countries, 
 he obtained the place of secretary to an embassy about to be sent 
 to the king of Persia. That country he reached by way of Moscow, 
 Astracan and the Caspian Sea, arriving at Ispahan in 1684. Dur- 
 ing his residence there, he employed himself chiefly in researches 
 into the natural history of the country ; and for the sake of con- 
 tinuing those researches, when the embassy was the next year about 
 to return home, he obtained, through the recommendation of the 
 Swedish ambassador, the place of chief surgeon to the Dutch East 
 India Company's fleet, then cruising in the Persian Gulf. "It 
 agreed best with my inclination," so he says in the preface to his 
 work on Japan, " to undertake a further journey, and I chose 
 
ENGELBERT KAMPFER. 217 
 
 rather to lead the restless and troublesome life of a traveller, than 
 by coming home to subject myself to a share in that train of calam- 
 ities my native country was then involved in. Therefore, I took 
 my leave of the ambassador and his retinue (who did me the honor 
 to attend me a mile out of Ispahan) with a firm resolution to spend 
 some years longer in seeing other eastern courts, countries and 
 nations. I was never used to receive large supplies of money from 
 home. 'T was by my own industry I had till then supported my- 
 self, and the very same means maintained me afterwards, as long 
 as I staid abroad, and enabled me to serve the Dutch East India 
 Company, though in a less honorable employment. 
 
 " This offspring of Japhet enjoys, more than any other European 
 nation, the blessing of Noah to live in the tents of Shem, and to 
 have Canaan for their servant. God hath so blessed their valor 
 and conduct, that they have enlarged their trade, conquests and 
 possessions, throughout Asia, to the very extremities of the East, 
 and there hath never been wanting among them a succession of 
 prudent and able men, who have promoted their interests and wel- 
 fare to the utmost of their capacity. But to come to the point. It 
 was by the gracious leave, and under the protection, of this honora- 
 ble Company, that I have often obtained my end in the Indies, and 
 have had the satisfaction at last to see the remote empire of Japan, 
 and the court of its powerful monarch." 
 
 Kampfer remained at Gamroon, on the Persian Gulf, for near 
 three years, employing his leisure in scientific researches. Leaving 
 that unhealthy station in June, 1688, he proceeded in the fleet along 
 the coasts of Persia and India to Ceylon, and thence by Sumatra to 
 Batavia, where he arrived in September, 1689. Having obtained 
 the appointment of physician to the factory in Japan, he left Bata- 
 via in May, 1690, and having touched at Siam, of which he has 
 given an account in his book, on the 22d of September, about noon, 
 he came in sight of the high mountainous country about Nagasaki. 
 As soon as the land was seen, all on board were required, as the 
 usage was, to give up their prayer-books and other books of divin- 
 ity, as also all the European money they had about them, to the 
 captain, who, having taken a memorandum of them, packed away 
 all these surrendered articles in an old cask, to be hid away from 
 the Japanese, but to be surrendered to the owners on leaving 
 19 
 
 
218 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690. 
 
 Japan. At sunset, Nagasaki was six or seven leagues distant. 
 At midnight they reached the entrance of the bay, in which they 
 found fifty fathoms of water. This entrance was full of rocks and 
 islands, which obliged them to wait till morning ; and then, being 
 becalmed, they fired cannon to notify their arrival. These were 
 heard at the Dutch factory, six miles distant, and in the afternoon 
 four small vessels came out with some persons from the factory, 
 accompanied by swarms of Japanese officers, clerks and soldiers, 
 and the chief interpreter, who, on boarding the ship, demanded all 
 writings and letters, in the hands of whomsoever they might be. 
 They soon left, and the ship followed slowly, making her way by 
 kedging, till by ten at night she dropped anchor within half a 
 league of the city. The next morning she was towed in still further 
 by a fleet of Japanese boats. 
 
 The harbor was found to be well protected, and completely en- 
 closed by rocks, islands and mountains, on the tops of which 
 were guard-houses, from which those on the look-out, had, by means 
 of their spy-glasses, detected the ship shortly after she had made the 
 land, and had given notice of her arrival to the authorities. Along 
 the shore several bastions were seen, with palisades painted red, but 
 no cannon ; and on the hills several fortifications, screened by cloths, 
 so as to prevent what was in them from being visible. 
 
 Having dropped anchor within three hundred yards of the island 
 of Desima, they were again boarded by two Japanese officers, with 
 a host of attendants, who made a careful examination of all on board, 
 according to a list given them, writing down their names and busi- 
 ness. Five or six of the number were then subjected to a strict 
 cross-examination as to all the particulars of the voyage. It so 
 happened that the steward had died, the day before their arrival, 
 of a fit of apoplexy, consequent upon his being denied any more 
 arrack, or brandy — apart from his drinking, an able man, and, as 
 Kampfer tells us, the son of a noted divine at the Hague, but who, 
 by early indulgence, had fallen into debaucheries and a dissolute 
 life. Many questions were asked about the dead man, and his 
 breast and other parts of the corpse were carefully examined to see 
 if there were any cross or other mark of the popish religion upon 
 it. After much urging, the Japanese consented to the immediate 
 
KAMPFER LANDS AT DESIMA. 219 
 
 removal of the body ; but none of the ship's company were allowed 
 to attend, or to see what was done with it. 
 
 As soon as this roll-calling and examination were over, Japanese 
 soldiers and revenue officers were put into every corner, and the 
 ship was, as it were, completely taken out of the hands of the Dutch. 
 For that day only, they were left in possession of the boats to look 
 after the anchor ; but all their arms and gunpowder were taken 
 away. " In short," says Kampfer, " had I not been beforehand 
 acquainted with their usual proceedings, I could not have helped 
 thinking that we had got into a hostile country, and had been taken 
 for spies." That evening was received from the factory a supply 
 of fowls, eggs, fish, shell-fish, turnips, radishes, — which, as Kampfer 
 afterwards observed, were largely cultivated, and formed a great 
 part of the food of the country people, — onions, fresh ginger, 
 pumpkins, watermelons, white bread, and a barrel of saki, or Jap- 
 anese rice-beer. 
 
 On the twenty-ninth the officers of the factory came on board, 
 and calling the ship's company together, read to them the orders 
 of the Dutch East India Company, and of the governor of Naga- 
 saki, to the effect that every one was to behave soberly and dis- 
 creetly with respect to the natives and to the laws and customs of 
 the country. A paper containing these orders, written in Dutch, 
 was, according to the Japanese custom, left on board for everybody 
 to read. No one, except the captain of the ship and the director, or 
 head officer (in Dutch, Opperhoofd), of the factory, could leave the 
 ship for Desima, or return on board again, without a written pass- 
 port, in the one case granted by the Japanese officers on board, in 
 the other by those upon the island. On the twenty-sixth Kampfer 
 took his goods and landed for his two years' residence on the island. 
 It was his object to get all the knowledge he possibly could of the 
 present state and past history of Japan ; but in this he encoun- 
 tered many difficulties. The Japanese officers, with whom the 
 Dutch came in contact, were all bound by an oath, renewed every 
 year, not to talk with the Dutch, nor to make any disclosures to 
 them, respecting the domestic affairs of the country, its religion, or 
 its politics ; and not only that, they were also bound by oath to 
 watch and report each other — which fear of being informed 
 against was inde<i 1 their chief dread and restraint. " Naturallv 
 
220 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690. 
 
 the Japanese were," in Kampfer's opinion, " their pride of warlike 
 humor being set aside, as civil, as polite and curious a nation as 
 any in the world, naturally inclined to commerce and familiarity 
 with foreigners, and desirous to excess to be informed of their his- 
 tories, arts and sciences. But," he adds, " as we are only mer- 
 chants, whom they place in the lowest class' of mankind, and as 
 the narrow inspection we are kept under must naturally lead them 
 to some jealousy and mistrust, so there is no other way to gain 
 their friendship, and to win them over to our interest, but a willing- 
 ness to comply with their desire, a liberality to please their avari- 
 cious inclinations, and a submissive conduct to natter their vanity. 
 'T was by this means I worked myself into such a friendship and 
 familiarity with my interpreters, and the officers of our island, who 
 daily came over to us, as I believe none before me could boast of, 
 ever since we have been put under such narrow regulations. Lib- 
 erally assisting them as I did with my advice and medicines, with 
 what information I was able to give them in astronomy and mathe- 
 matics, and with a cordial and plentiful supply of European liquors, 
 I could also in my turn freely put to them what questions I pleased 
 about the affairs of their country, whether relating to the govern- 
 ment in civil or ecclesiastical affairs, to the customs of the natives, 
 to the natural and political history ; and there was none that ever 
 refused to give me all the information he could, when we were alone, 
 even of things which they are strictly charged to keep secret. The 
 private informations thus procured from those who came to visit me 
 were of great use to me in collecting materials for my intended his- 
 tory of this country ; but yet they fell far short of being altogether 
 satisfactory, and I should riot, perhaps, have been able to compass 
 that design, if I had not by good luck met with other opportunities, 
 and in particular the assistance of a discreet young man, by whose 
 means I was richly supplied with whatever information I wanted 
 concerning the affairs of Japan. He was about twenty-four years 
 of age, well versed in the Chinese and Japanese languages, and 
 very desirous of improving himself. Upon my arrival, he was 
 appointed to wait upon me as my servant, and at the same time to 
 be by me instructed in physic and surgery. The Ottona, who is 
 the chief officer of our island [of Desima], having keen attended by 
 him under my inspection in a serious illness, suffered him to con 
 
kampfer's means op information. 221 
 
 tinue in my service during the whole time of mj abode in the coun« 
 try, which was two years, and to attend me in our two journeys to 
 court, consequently four times, almost from one end of the empire 
 to the other — a favor seldom granted to young men of his age, 
 and never for so long a time. As I could not well have obtained 
 my end without giving him a competent knowledge of the Dutch 
 language, I instructed him therein with so much success, that in a 
 year's time he could write and read it better than any of our inter- 
 preters. I also gave him all the information I could in anatomy 
 and physic, and further allowed him a handsome yearly salary to 
 the best of my ability. In return I employed him to procure me 
 as ample accounts as possible of the then state and condition of the 
 country, its government, the imperial court, the religions established 
 in the empire, the history of former ages, and remarkable daily 
 occurrences. There was not a book I desired to see on these and 
 other subjects, which he did not bring to me, and explain to me out 
 of it whatever I wanted to know. And because he was obliged, in 
 several things, to inquire, or to borrow, or to buy of other people, 
 I never dismissed him without providing him with money for such 
 purposes, besides his yearly allowance. So expensive, so difficult a 
 thing is it to foreigners, ever since the shutting up of the Japanese 
 empire, to procure any information about it." 
 
 After two years thus spent, Kampfer left Japan in November, 
 1692, and reached Amsterdam, by way of Batavia, the October 
 following, bringing with him a very rare collection of Japanese 
 books, maps, coins, &c. It had been his intention immediately on 
 his return to prepare his notes and memoirs for publication ; but 
 being appointed physician to the count of Lippe, his native prince, 
 and speedily obtaining a large private practice, and assuming also 
 the responsibility and cares of a family, this purpose was long de- 
 layed. His Amoenitates Exoticae, notes of his eastern travels, did 
 not appear till 1712, and he died in 1716, leaving his History of 
 Japan still unpublished. It first appeared in 1727, translated from 
 -the German into English, and published in two folios, with numer- 
 ous engravings * under the patronage of Sir Hans Sloane and the 
 
 * Thunberg notices an ocld mistake by the engravers, in representing the 
 Japanese as wearing their swords as we do. with the edge downward, where- 
 as their custom is just the reverse, the edge being turned upwards. 
 
 19* 
 
222 JAPAN. A. D. 1690. 
 
 Royal Society. There was prefixed to it by the translator, Dr. I. 
 Gr. Scheuchzer, a valuable introduction, containing a catalogue of 
 works upon Japan, which Charlevoix, in the similar catalogue at 
 the end of his History of Japan, has mainly copied ; as was done 
 also by his publishers, as to most of Kampfer's engravings. 
 
 Kampfer's work is divided into five books. The first book con- 
 tains, first, a general and particular geographical description of the 
 empire, derived mainly from Japanese writers; second, a disquisi- 
 tion on the origin of the Japanese, — whom Kampfer thinks, from 
 the evidence as well of language as of character, not to be a 
 Chinese colony, nor even to belong to the same stock ; third, the 
 stories, evidently mythical, which the Japanese give of their own 
 origin ; and fourth, an account of the climate of Japan, its miner- 
 als and metals, plants, animals, reptiles, fish and shells. 
 
 The second book devoted to the political state of Japan contains, 
 first, their mythological history ; second, the annals of the Dairi, 
 with a description of their court and residence ; and third, a list 
 of the Kubo-Sama. This part of the work, at least the annals, is 
 sufficiently dry; but it contains the substance of all that the 
 Japanese know or believe as to the chronology of their own 
 history. 
 
 The third book describes the religious state of Japan, giving 
 an analytical view of the different creeds prevailing there, such as 
 throws great light upon the confused and mixed up view taken in 
 the letters of the Jesuit missionaries. 
 
 The fourth book treats of foreign relations and trade*. The rise 
 and fall of the Portuguese missions, although the most interesting 
 portion of the history of Japan, is very slightly touched upon, as it 
 seems to have been no part of Kampfer's plan to revamp old 
 materials, but to collect new ones. 
 
 The fifth book, and much the largest, is devoted to his two jour- 
 neys from Nagasaki to Jedo and back — those journeys having 
 furnished him with the principal opportunity he enjoyed of seeing 
 Japan as it was. 
 
 " The place where the Dutch live," says Kampfer, " is called 
 Desima, that is, the Fore Island, the island situated before the 
 town; also, Desimamatz, or the Fore Island Street, it being reck- 
 
DESCRIPTION OF DESIMA. 225 
 
 oned as one of the streets of Nagasaki. It has been raised from 
 the bottom, which is rocky and sandy, lying bare at low water 
 The foundation is of free-stone, and it rises about half a fathom 
 above high water mark. In shape it nearly resembles a fan with- 
 out a handle, being of an oblong square figure, the two longer 
 sides segments of a circle. It is joined to the town by a small 
 stone bridge, a few paces long, at the end of which is a guard-house, 
 where there are soldiers constantly upon duty. On the north, or 
 seaward side, are two strong gates, never opened but for lading and 
 unlading the Dutch ships. The island is enclosed with pretty 
 high deal boards, covered with small roofs, on the top of which is 
 planted a double row of pikes, like a chevaux-de-frise, but the whole 
 very weak, and unable to hold out against any force. 
 
 " Some few paces off, in the water, are thirteen posts, standing at 
 proper distances, with small wooden tablets at the top, upon which 
 is written, in large Japanese characters, an order from the gov- 
 ernors, strictly forbidding all boats or vessels, under severe penalties, 
 to come within these posts, or to approach the island. 
 
 " Just by the bridge, towards the town, is a place where they 
 put up the imperial mandates and proclamations, and the orders of 
 the governors. 
 
 " Besides this, the ottona, or chief officer of the street, chiefly 
 at the time of the sale, causes orders of his own, much to the same 
 purpose with those of the governors, to be put up on the other side 
 of the bridge, just by the entry into the island * 
 
 " By my own measuring I found the breadth to be eighty-two 
 common paces, and the length of the longest side two hundred and 
 thirty-six. The surface is commonly estimated at a stadium (about 
 
 * A translation of one of these tablets is given by Kampfer, as follows : 
 " Courtesans only, but no other women, shall be admitted. Only the 
 ecclesiastics of the mountain Kofu shall be admitted. All other priests, 
 and all Jammab os, shall stand excluded." [Note by Kampfer. — Kofu is 
 stated to be a mountain near Miako, a sanctuary and asylum for criminals, 
 no officers of justice being suffered to come there. Its inhabitants, many 
 thousand in number, lead an ecclesiastical life. All are admitted that de- 
 sire it, or who fly there for shelter, and are afterwards maintained for life, 
 if they can but bring in thirty taels for the use of the convent, and are 
 otherwise willing to serve the community in their several capacities. These 
 monks are not absolutely confined to this mountain, but many travel up and 
 
224 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G90. 
 
 three acres). There is a narrow walk to go round along the dea. 
 boards which enclose it. The houses are on both sides of a broad 
 street that runs across the island. These houses, and the whole 
 island, were built at the expense of some of the inhabitants of Naga- 
 saki, to whom, or their heirs, the Dutch pay a yearly rent of six 
 thousand five hundred taels — a price far beyond the real value. 
 The houses, built of wood, and very sorry and poor, are two stories 
 high, the lower stories serving as warehouses, and the uppermost 
 to live in. 
 
 " The other buildings are three guard-houses, one at each end 
 and one in the middle of the island, and a place by the entrance, 
 where are kept all the necessary instruments to extinguish fires. 
 Water for the kitchen and for common use, which is a separate 
 charge in addition to the rent, comes from the river which runs 
 through the town, being brought over in pipes made of bamboos, 
 into a reservoir within the island. 
 
 " Behind the street is a convenient house for the sale of goods, 
 and two warehouses, strong enough to hold out against fire, built 
 by the Company at their own expense ; also, a large kitchen ; a 
 house for the deputies of the governors of Nagasaki, who have the 
 regulation of the trade ; a house for the interpreters, made use of 
 only at the time of the sale ; a kitchen and pleasure-garden ; a 
 place to wash linen and other things ; some small private gardens, 
 and a bath. The ottona, or chief officer of the street, has also a 
 house and garden of his own. 
 
 " Such," says Kampfer, " is the state of the island," and such it 
 continues to the present time, " to the small compass of which the 
 Dutch have been confined by the Japanese ; and as things now 
 stand, we must be so far satisfied with it, there being no hopes that 
 we shall ever be better accommodated or allowed more liberty by 
 so jealous and circumspect a nation. 
 
 down the country, in what manner or business they please. Very many of 
 them betake themselves to trade and commerce.] 
 
 " All beggars, and all persons that live on charity, shall be denied entrance. 
 
 "Nobody shall presume with any ship or boat to come within the pali- 
 sades of Desima. Nobody shall presume with any ship or boat to pass undei 
 the bridge of Desima. 
 
 " No Hollander shall be permitted to come out, but for weighty reasons.' 
 
THE DUTCH AT DESIMA. 225 
 
 " Our ships, which put into this harbor once a year, after they 
 have been thoroughly visited by the Japanese, and proper lists 
 taken of all the goods on board, have leave to put their men on 
 shore on this island to refresh them, and to keep them there so long 
 as they lie in the harbor, commonly two or three months. After 
 they have left, the director of our trade remains in the island, with 
 a small number of people, about seven, or more if he thinks proper. 
 
 " Thus we live all the year round little better than prisoners, 
 confined within the compass of a small inland, under the perpetual 
 and narrow inspection of our keepers. 'T is true, indeed, we are 
 now and then allowed a small escape, an indulgence which, without 
 nattering ourselves, we can by no means suppose to be an effect of 
 their love and friendship, for as much as it is never granted to us, 
 unless it be to pay our respects to some great men, or for some 
 other business, necessary on our side and advantageous for the 
 natives. Xor doth the coming out, even upon these occasions, give 
 us any greater liberty than we enjoy on our island, as will appear, 
 first, by the great expenses of our journeys and visits, great or 
 small, and by the number of guards and inspectors who constantly 
 attend us, as if we were traitors and professed enemies of the 
 empire. 
 
 " After the departure of our ships, the director of our trade, or 
 resident of the Dutch East "India Company, sets out with a 
 numerous retinue on his journey to court, to pay his respects to 
 the emperor, and to make the usual yearly presents. This journey 
 must be made once a year, not only by the Dutch, but, also, by all 
 the lords and princes of the empire, as being the emperor's vassals ; 
 and our own embassy is looked upon at court as an homage paid 
 by the Dutch nation to the emperor of Japan, as their sovereign 
 lord. Upon the journey we are not allowed any more liberty than 
 even close prisoners could reasonably claim. We are not suffered 
 to speak to anybody, not even (except by special leave) to the 
 domestics and servants of the inns we lodge at. As soon as we 
 come to an inn, we are without delay carried up stairs, if possible, 
 or into the back apartments, which have no other view but into 
 the yard, which, for a still greater security, and to prevent any 
 thoughts of escape, is immediately shut and nailed up. Our reti- 
 nue, which, by special command from the governors of Nagasaki, 
 
226 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690. 
 
 guards, attends, and assists us in our journey, is composed of the 
 interpreters and cooks of our island, and of a good number of 
 soldiers, servants, bailiffs, porters, and people, to look after our 
 horses and baggage, which must be conveyed on horseback. All 
 these people, though never so needless, must be maintained at the 
 Company's expense* 
 
 " Before our departure from Jedo, and again upon our return, 
 our director, with one of his Company, goes to make a visit to the 
 governors of Nagasaki, at their palace, to return them thanks for 
 their protection, and to entreat its continuance. Nor can even this 
 visit be made without a numerous train of guards, soldiers, and 
 bailiffs. 
 
 " Another visit, and with the like numerous attendants, is made 
 to the governors, by the director of our factory, upon the first day 
 of the eighth month, when it is usual to make them a present. 
 
 " The few Dutchmen who remain at Desima, after the departure 
 of our ships, are permitted, once or twice a year, to take a walk 
 into the adjacent country, and 'in particular to view the temples 
 about Nagasaki. This liberty is oftener granted to physicians and 
 surgeons, under pretence of going to search for medicinal plants. 
 However, this pleasure-walk falls very expensive to us, for it must 
 be made in company of the Otfona, of our ordinary interpreters, 
 and other officers in our service, who are handsomely treated by us 
 at dinner in one of the temples of the Ikosiu sect ; and we must on 
 this occasion, and that with seeming satisfaction, see our purses 
 strongly squeezed for the most common civilities shown us by the 
 priests of that temple. 
 
 " The festival of Suwa, the patron and protector of Nagasaki, 
 falling just upon the time when our ships lie in the harbor, our 
 people are permitted to view this solemnity from a scaffold, built 
 at our own expense, our presence being not only thought honorable 
 to their saint, but, what they value still more, advantageous to 
 many. of his worshippers. It may be easily imagined that our train 
 ttnd guards are not lessened upon such an occasion. On the con- 
 trary, we are examined and searched four times before we come to • 
 the place where the solemnity is performed, and again afterwards 
 counted over several times with all possible accuracy, when we gci 
 
 * For a full account of this journey, see chap, xxxi., &c. 
 
THE DUTCH AT DESIMA. 22T 
 
 iip and when we come down from the scaffold, as if it were possible 
 for some of us to slip out between their fingers. Our slaves, also, 
 are admitted to this solemnity, as black Dutchmen.* 
 
 " Another day is set apart for viewing five large boats, which 
 qaust be constantly kept, at the expense of the Dutch East India 
 Company, for the lading and unlading of our ships. This is 
 again done with the same numerous retinue, which we afterwards 
 entertain at dinner at one of the neighboring temples. 
 
 " When one of our ships hath been discovered to steer towards 
 the harbor, some of the Dutchmen left at Desima are sent to meet 
 her, in order to get a preliminary information of her cargo and 
 condition. The Company for this purpose constantly keeps two 
 barges in readiness, large enough to take on board our usual 
 numerous attendants, which, together with the commissioners for 
 victualling, attending in their own barge, with a good provision of 
 victuals and refreshments, must be treated in the neighboring small 
 island, Iwara-gosima, the whole again at the Company's expense. 
 
 " These are the days allowed us for our recreation, if it may be 
 called a recreation to be led about, like prisoners, under the narrow 
 inspection of so many attentive eyes ; for, as to the several officers 
 concerned in the management of our island and trade, and permit- 
 ted on that account to converse with us, no sincere friendship, good 
 understanding, or familiarity, can be by any means expected of 
 them ; for, before they are admitted into our service, they must 
 oblige themselves, by a solemn oath, to deny us all manner of com- 
 munication, credit, or friendship, any ways tending to support or 
 promote our interest. 
 
 " The person who takes this oath prays the vengeance of the 
 supreme gods of the heavens and the chief magistrates of the 
 country upon him, his family, his domestics, his friends and near 
 relatives, in case he doth not sincerely fulfil and satisfy to all and 
 every article, as they are read and specified to him after the form 
 of the oath, which, together with these articles, must be signed by 
 him, and sealed with his seal,t dipped in black ink, pouring, for a 
 
 * Eor an account of this festival, see chap. xxx. 
 
 f The custom of using an emblem, or device, instead of a signature, or to 
 certify it, prevails with the Japanese, as with so many other nations 
 
228 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690. 
 
 still stronger confirmation, some drops of his own blood upon it, 
 which he fetches by pricking one of his fingers behind the nail; 
 This must be repeated twice a year, at least : first, about the 
 beginning of the year, at the time when they perform the solemn 
 act of theirs of trampling upon the image of our blessed Saviour, 
 pendent from the cross, of the Virgin Mary, and of other holy per 
 sons, as a public and unquestionable proof that they forever re- 
 nounce the Christian religion ; * and again, after the arrival of our 
 ships in the harbor, in order to remind them of the solemn obliga- 
 tion they lay under, and to renew their hatred towards us. The 
 persons who are to attend us in our journey to court must, imme- 
 diately after their departure, take a third oath, promising that 
 they will have a strict hand and watchful eye over us and our 
 conduct all along the road, and that they will not show us any 
 particular acts of friendship, or enter into any kind of familiarity 
 with us. 
 
 , " This oath, however, though never so terrible and binding, 
 would be but little regarded by this nation, were it not for the 
 severe punishment put by the civil magistrate upon the least trans- 
 gression thereof, — a crime that is not to be expiated but by shed- 
 ding the very same blood the oath hath been confirmed by. 
 
 " Thus much I cannot forbear owning, in justice to the natives, 
 that, even amidst all the troubles and hardships we are exposed to 
 in this country, we have at least this comfort, that we are treated 
 by our numerous guardians and overseers with apparent civility, 
 with caresses, compliments, presents of victuals, and other marks 
 of deference, so far as it is not inconsistent with their reasons of 
 state. But this, their gentle and reasonable behavior on our be- 
 half, is owing more to the custom of the country, and to the innate 
 civility and good manners of the natives, than to any particular 
 esteem they have for us, or any favor they are willing to show us. 
 " No Japanese, who seems to have any regard or friendship for 
 the Dutch, is looked upon as an honest man and true lover of his 
 country. This maxim is grounded upon the principle that it is 
 absolutely contrary to the interests of the country, against the 
 pleasure ol their sovereign, — nay, by virtue of the oath they have 
 taken, even against the supreme will of the gods, and the dictates 
 
 * See further in relation to this ceremony, chap. xxx. 
 
THE DUTCH AT DESIMA. 229 
 
 of their conscience, — to snow any favor to foreigners. Nay, they 
 pursue this false reasoning still further, and pretend that a friend 
 of foreigners must of necessity be an enemy to his country, and a 
 rebel to his sovereign ; for, they say, if the country should hap- 
 pen to be attacked or invaded by these foreigners, the laws and 
 ties of friendship would oblige him to stand by them, and, conse- 
 quently, to become a traitor to his country and sovereign. 
 
 " Hence, to overreach a Dutchman ; to ask extravagant prices 
 of him ; to cheat and defraud him (so much as they think will not 
 prove prejudicial to their reputation, which they have a very 
 tender regard for) ; to lessen the liberties ■ and advantages of the 
 Dutch; to propose new projects for making their servitude and 
 condition still worse, and the like, are looked upon as good, hand- 
 some, and lawful things in themselves, and unquestionable proofs 
 of a good patriot. 
 
 " If anybody steals anything of the Dutch, and it be found upon 
 him (which the kuli, or porters, we employ at the time of our sale 
 are very dexterous- at), there is seldom any other punishment 
 inflicted upon him but restitution of the stolen goods, and a few 
 lashes from soldiers upon duty at our gate. Sometimes he is ban- 
 ished from the island for a short time, or, if the crime be very 
 notorious, from the town, though that is done but seldom. But 
 the penalty inflicted upon smugglers is no less than an unavoidable 
 death, either by beheading or the cross, according to the nature of 
 the crime, and the degree of guilt. 
 
 " The lading and unlading of our ships, and other business of 
 this kind, must not be done by our own people, but by the natives, 
 who are well paid for their work, whilst our people stand idle, and 
 have nothing to do but to look at them. But this is not the only 
 grievance, for they always hire at least twice as many people as 
 there is occasion for, and, if they work but one hour, we must, 
 Tievertheless, pay them a whole day's wages. 
 
 "All the people who have anything to do for or with us, though 
 never so numerous, and mere meddlers, must be maintained by us, 
 either directly by appointed salaries, or indirectly by the money 
 which the governors of the town detain from the price of our com- 
 modities. 
 
 " No Dutchman can send a letter out of the country, unless the 
 20 
 
230 JAPAN. A. D. 1690. 
 
 contents be first entered into a register-book kept for this purpose 5 
 and a copy of it left with the governors. As to letters from abroad, 
 all the public ones must be sent directly to the governors, before 
 they are opened. As to the private ones, there are ways and means 
 secretly to convey them to us, which the government connives at, 
 though it be contrary to law. 
 
 " No Japanese is permitted to send any letters or presents to 
 their relatives abroad (there being still some left from former, mar- 
 riages with the Dutch), or to receive any from them, unless they be 
 first carried to the governors, to be by them opened, and left entirely 
 at their disposal. 
 
 " Formerly, when a Dutchman died at Nagasaki, his body, 
 deemed unworthy of their ground, was thrown into the sea, some- 
 where without the harbor. But, of late, an empty spot of waste 
 ground was assigned us, and leave given us decently to bury our 
 dead there. 
 
 " It is an easy matter for anybody, whether native or foreigner, 
 to* make his claims upon the Dutch ; but we find it very difficult to 
 obtain justice from others. In the first case, the government is 
 always willing to give the complaining party damages, without so 
 much as considering whether the claim be upon the whole Company, 
 or some of its officers and servants, and whether it be just to make 
 the former suffer for the misdemeanors of the latter. But, if we 
 have any complaint to make, we generally meet with so many 
 difficulties and tedious delays as would deter anybody from press- 
 ing even the most righteous cause. One instance out of many will 
 be sufficient. The famous Chinese pirate, Coxanga, having made 
 himself master of the island of Formosa, and of our fortress, Tay- 
 ooan, or Zelandia, thereon, we took an opportunity, by way of repri- 
 sals, to attack a large junk of his, bound for that island, with about 
 three hundred men on board, and to disable her with our fire, so. 
 that, although she drove for about thirteen days after the attack, 
 yet not above nine of the whole company saved their lives. Upon 
 this, heavy complaints were made by the Chinese to the govern- 
 ment of Nagasaki, and with so good an effect that the same year 
 twenty-seven thousand taels damages were assigned to them out of 
 our treasury. Some time after, about the year 1672, one of our 
 ships having unfortunately stranded upon the coast of Formosa, the 
 
CORPORATION OP INTERPRETERS. 231 
 
 ship's company was barbarously murdered, and the whole cargo 
 taken possession of by the Chinese subjects of Coxo/tiga ; where- 
 upon we made our complaints, before the very same court, against 
 this act of hostility, but with so little success, that, far from having 
 any damages assigned us, we could not obtain the restitution of so 
 much as. one farthing. 
 
 " The chief and most extensive company or corporation of the 
 officers of our island, is that of the Interpreters, or, in the literal 
 sense, through-mouths. Those of the first order, called true Inter- 
 preters, are eight in number. By virtue of their office they are 
 obliged to assist and attend us whenever there is occasion ; and so 
 far, indeed, they execute their duty with great preciseness, that 
 we can scarce ever one moment get rid of their importunate pres- 
 ence ; for as they are made answerable for our conduct, so they 
 spare no pains nor trouble to have a watchful eye over us. 
 
 " Four of these are high interpreters, of whom one is Ninban, signi- 
 fying a yearly guardian, or person appointed to report upon another. 
 TMs officer is only annual, and to him all petitions and complaints, 
 and whatever else relates to us and to our commerce, must be deliv- 
 ered, and by him, with the consent of his brethren, to the com- 
 manding governor or his deputy. He hath the greatest share in 
 the management of oui - island, in the direction of our trade, and in 
 all our affairs in general. The four other interpreters, though of 
 the same order, are called inferior interpreters. They have not 
 near the authority of the first four, whom they are to assist in the 
 performance of their duties. They, too, have a Ninban, or presi- 
 dent of their own, who is a sort of deputy to the chief Ninban. 
 Both Ninbans attend us in our journey to the court, their year of 
 office terminating with their return. 
 
 " They are paid by fees and presents (to buy their favor), and 
 by profits on the hire of laborers for the Company, and horses for 
 the journey to court. The whole income of a chief interpreter may 
 amount to three thousand taels and upwards, and that of an inferior 
 interpreter is seldom less than one thousand five hundred taels ; and 
 yet, with all this income, they live but sparingly, because they must 
 maintain out of this money numerous families, and sometimes poor 
 relations, whom, according to the innate pride of this nation, they 
 won't suffer to appear necessitous.. Some part, also, of their rev* 
 
232 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690. 
 
 enue is spent in presents to the governors of Nxgasaki and theii 
 deputies. 
 
 " Next to the chief interpreters, must be mentioned the learning 
 interpreters, or apprentices. They are never less than eight, but 
 sometimes more, all sons to the chief interpreters, by birth or adop- 
 tion. They come over to us every day, in order to learn the Dutch 
 and Portuguese languages, as well as the art and mystery of dealing 
 with foreigners. They are employed as spies upon several occasions, 
 as also to inspect the lading and unlading of our ships, to search 
 the sailors, and such others as go on board or leave the vessels. 
 They also examine the goods imported and exported, and are allowed 
 for these services a salary of forty taels a year, besides a share in 
 the boarding wages and other perquisites. 
 
 " After these come the house interpreters, employed by private 
 Dutchmen within their own houses. They have nothing to do on 
 our island, unless it be at the time of our yearly fair, or sale, when, 
 after having taken a solemn oath to avoid all communication, inti- 
 macy, and familiarity with us, they are by the Ottona admitted 
 into our service. From two to six are assigned to every Dutch- 
 man, during the whole time of our fair, nominally as interpreters, 
 but in fact as spies to watch his actions ; for there is scarce one in 
 ten of them that understands a Dutch woM, excepting some few 
 who have been servants to the Dutch formerly. 
 
 " There are upwards of a hundred of these house interpreters, 
 who all stand under the command of the chief interpreters, and 
 particularly the Ninban, or president for the time being. Their 
 salaries, an uncertain sum, taken out of the taxes laid upon the 
 Dutch trade, are supposed, one year with another, to amount to 
 about six thousand taels, which they divide among themselves, 
 according to their rank and office^ and as it is computed that the 
 twelve chiefs among them get at furthest two hundred taels apiece, 
 the rest must take up with half that money, and sometimes with 
 less. This company of interpreters have four treasurers and two 
 clerks to keep their cash and an account of what is paid in and out. 
 
 " Two fundamental maxims they go upon : to do what lies in 
 their power, insensibly to increase the yearly expenses of the Dutch, 
 to the advantage of their countrymen, as becomes true patriots ' 
 jo conceal as much as possible all the tricks and cheats they per^ 
 
THE OTTONA OE DESIMA. 23S 
 
 petually play us, lest the natives should come to know them. Both 
 these ends they endeavor to obtain by confining us sjill more and 
 more, looking upon this as the surest means to keep us ignorant of 
 the language of the country, and to prevent all conversation and 
 familiarity with the natives. If there be any of our people that 
 hath made any considerable progress in the Japanese language, 
 they are sure, under some pretext or other, to obtain an order from 
 the governors to expel him from the country. 
 
 " The only thing wherein the captains, as they are here called, 
 or directors of our trade (a province the Japanese will suffer them 
 to have very little to do with), can be useful to the Company and 
 show their zeal for their master's service, is to act contrary to these 
 principles, and to find out ways and means civilly to refuse what 
 new requests are from time to time made to them. For if any one 
 of these demands be granted but once, or any new charge, though 
 never so small, be suffered to be laid upon us, they make it a prece- 
 dent forever after. And herein they particularly endeavor to 
 deceive new directors, who never have been in the country before, 
 and whom they suppose to be not fully apprised of their ways of 
 proceeding. 'On this account they will often, on the first year of 
 their presence, help them to a very profitable trade, knowing, in 
 case their demands be not admitted, how to balance it the next 
 with a more chargeable and less profitable one. 
 
 " The officer next in rank to the president of the interpreters, 
 and having jurisdiction over everybody on the island except the 
 interpreters, is the Ottona, or magistrate of the street. He has the 
 inspection of our trade, and of the yearly sale of our goods, jointly 
 with the company, of interpreters. He keeps a particular list of 
 those of our good* that belong to private persons, keeps those goods 
 in his custody, and gives orders when and how they are to be dis- 
 posed of. He takes care that our street, houses and other build- 
 ings, be kept in good repair, and likewise, as much as lies in his 
 power, that they be not injured by thieves, fire, or other accidents. 
 He protects our servants, cooks, daily laborers, and all persons who 
 are within His jurisdiction, composes the differences arising between 
 them, admits and swears them into their respective employments, 
 and dismisses them as he pleases. He gives passports and tickets 
 to come to Desima, nobody being permitted to enter this island 
 20* 
 
234 JAPAN. A. D. 1690. 
 
 without them. He is obliged, bj virtue of his office and by the 
 oath he hath taken, narrowly to examine into the conduct, life and 
 behavior, not only of our servants and officers, but also of ourselves, 
 and to keep us to a strict obedience to the imperial orders, though 
 he is very cautious of laying any commands upon us of his own sole 
 authority, knowing that we would refuse to obey them. 
 
 " However, he hath so much power over us that in case any con- 
 siderable crime be committed, or any disregard shown to the impe- 
 rial orders, by any one of us, he can arrest him, and lay him in 
 irons, of which there are many and almost daily instances. 
 
 " Our present Ottona, Iosikawa Gibugemon, as on one side he 
 worked himself into no small esteem and favor with the govern- 
 ment by his great severity in the execution of his office, but chiefly 
 by having betrayed us and our interest in a late affair * so much is 
 he, on the other side, hated by us. I will not take upon me to 
 examine what reasons he hath to allege for his conduct in that 
 affair, though I have been credibly informed he had very good ones. 
 Thus far I must do justice to his character, and own that he shows 
 a great deal of prudence in his conduct, that he is no ways given to 
 covetousness or "falsehood, as, also, that he is an enemy to ignorance 
 and brutality, and so well versed in the moral doctrine of Koosi (or 
 Confucius), and in the history, laws, and religion of his country, that 
 he hath been desired to write the history of the province of Fisen. 
 
 " The Ottona has under him a Nitzi Josi, or messenger, whose 
 business it is daily to examine into the condition and safety of 
 the locks at the water-gates, to look into the state of pur ware- 
 houses and other buildings, and to give his master notice of what 
 he finds out of repair ; also several clerks, who are to make lists 
 of all the movable goods belonging to private persons, which may 
 be disposed of, to seal them up in the Ottona's name, and to take 
 them into safe custody. 
 
 " The Ottona hath the same salary allowed him by the Dutch 
 East India Company as the chief interpreter, and the same share 
 in the money detained by the order of the government from the 
 price of our goods, besides several other advantages, as, for instance, 
 his salary as Ottona of another street in the town, many presents 
 
 * The smuggling affair mentioned on page 249. 
 
OTHER OFFICERS OF DESIMA. 235 
 
 and gratifications made him by the proprietors of our island, and a 
 considerable part of the yearly rents we pay for the same, he having 
 already purchased about a third of our houses. His greatest profits 
 arise from the Dutch goods bought up for him at a cheap rate in 
 other people's names, and afterwards sold by him for much more 
 than their prime cost. 
 
 " Next to the Ottona are our twenty-four landlords, or proprie- 
 tors of our island. They visit us but seldom, except at the time 
 of our sale, when they make their, appearance daily, to look after 
 the condition of our houses, to be present and lend a helping hand 
 m making a list of all our commodities, household goods, and other 
 things, and, what is more, to have- a watchful eye over us, their 
 tenants, and to examine into our behavior and conduct, as being, 
 by virtue of the laws and customs of the country, answerable for 
 the same, and, in case of accidents and misdemeanors, sentenced to 
 bear a share either in the loss or punishment. 
 
 " Next come the five secretaries of the island, a sort of deputies 
 to the chief interpreters. Their business is to keep an account of 
 the presents made by the Dutch, of their ordinary expenses, the 
 expenses of their journey to court, and other things of this kind, 
 which are thought beneath the dignity of the chief interpreters. 
 Nay, they themselves, being not always willing to despatch their 
 business in person, keep also their deputies. The Company allows 
 a constant salary only to two, and these are to attend us in our 
 journey to court. The others are rewarded by handsome gratuities 
 at the time of our sale. 
 
 " The inspectors of our hdi,* or workmen, consist of fifteen 
 persons. One of the fifteen is quarter-master, who must be present 
 in person to encourage and look after them when there is any work 
 to be done. The whole company is to take care that we be not 
 robbed by these fadis, they being very dexterous at it, whenever a 
 favorable opportunity occurs. For this reason our East India 
 Company allows them a constant salary. 
 
 " The kulis, who are employed in lading and unlading of our 
 ships, are people unknown to us, and taken out of the town. All 
 
 * This is, evidently, the word cooly, employed in Indi i and China to des 
 ignate laborers of the lowest class. 
 
236 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690. 
 
 we know of them is, that we must pay them well for their trouble. 
 In order to make it beneficial to the whole town; the Ottona of each 
 street keeps a list of what people in his street are willing or able to 
 serve as hulls, that in their turn they may be sent over to Desima. 
 
 " The treasury officers are a company of thirty-six persons, 
 superior and inferior, who receive the money for the goods we have 
 disposed of, change it into kobangs of gold, and deliver them to our 
 interpreters, who count them before us. These treasurers retain 
 one per cent, for their trouble, and fifteen per cent, or more for 
 the benefit of the town, according to the yearly value of the kobang, 
 which varies from fifty-five to.fifty-nine mas in silver, besides which, 
 the director of this Company receives a hundred taels a year salary 
 from the Dutch, and the rest of the number fifty taels. 
 
 " Our commissioners for victualling are a company of about 
 seventeen house-keepers of Nagasaki with their families. Their 
 business is to provide our island with victuals, drink, household 
 goods, and what else we want, or have .leave to buy, of this kind. 
 Nobody but the members of this corporation is permitted to sell us 
 any victuals or goods, though they exact so much upon us that they 
 make us pay at least twice or thrice as much as things are sold for 
 at the market. They also furnish our people, on demand, with 
 courtesans; and, truly, our young sailors, unacquainted as they 
 commonly are with the virtue of temperance, are not ashamed to 
 spend five rix dollars for one night's pleasure, and with such 
 wenches, too, as a native of Nagasaki might have for two or three 
 mas, they being none of the best and handsomest; nor do the 
 masters of the women get more than a tael. The rest is laid up in 
 the cash of this Company for their own private use, or, as they 
 pretend, to hire proper servants to conduct the damsels over to our 
 island. 
 
 " The officers of the kitchen consist of three cooks, who serve by 
 turns, each a month, of two grooms of the kitchen, an apprentice or 
 two, who are generally the cook's own sons, and likely to succeed 
 their fathers in time, lastly of some laborers to carry water. This 
 j» the reason that our table is so very expensive, since the best part 
 of the year, the time of our sale only excepted, there are actually 
 more cooks than people to provide victuals for. And yet we have 
 strict commands from the governors of the town, not in the least to 
 
JAPANESE SERVANTS AT DESIMA. 237 
 
 alter this number, nor to get our victuals dressed by our own peo- 
 ple. We are obliged to allow one hundred and fifty taels a year to 
 the first, one hundred and thirty to the second, and one hundred to 
 the third. There are, besides, some other*people who now and then 
 do some little service in and for our kitchen, such as a man to look 
 after our cattle, — though but very few in number, and of very little 
 use to us, the males being generally secretly poisoned, or their legs 
 broke in the night, to prevent their multiplying- too much, which, 
 't is apprehended would turn to the disadvantage of the commis- 
 sioners of victualling, — a gardener and some other menial servants. 
 This being looked upon by the meaner sort of people at Nagasaki 
 as a perquisite, which every one is glad to have a share of in his 
 turn, these servants are relieved once a month, and others sent in 
 their stead, to do their business, out of every street of Nagasaki. 
 But the chief reason why they relieve them so often is because they 
 apprehend .a longer stay might make them too familiar with us, and 
 perhaps too favorable for our interest. 
 
 " The Dutch, out of a particular favor, are permitted to have 
 some young boys to wait upon them in the day-time. They are 
 entered in the Ottona's book in quality of messengers. They are 
 commonly sons of the inferior interpreters, and other officers of 
 our island, who, by this opportunity of learning the Dutch language, 
 qualify themselves in time to succeed their fathers. However, care 
 is taken that the}'" stay in our service only so long as they are 
 looked upon as simple, and ignorant of the state and interest of 
 their country, or else so long as the Ottona pleases to give them 
 leave ; but never without sufficient security, given upon oath, by a 
 respectable inhabitant of Nagasaki, who obliges himself to be an- 
 swerable for their misbehavior. Thus much must be owned in 
 justice to these young boys, that more readiness to do what they 
 are commanded, and a greater fidelity in the custody of the goods 
 they are entrusted with by their masters, is hardly to be met with 
 in any other nation. 
 
 " Some tradesmen and artificers of several companies in Nagasaki, 
 dre also permitted to come over to our island, when sent for, pro- 
 vided they have leave of the governors, which must be obtained 
 every time they are wanted. 
 
 " The guards employed to watch us are two within the island, 
 
238 JAPAN. A. D. 1690. 
 
 and three without. Six of the poorer inhabitants of Nagasaki, 
 furnished by turns from all the streets, and relieved once a month, 
 have their appropriate stations within the island, whence they go 
 over to one another all night, and indicate, according to the custom 
 of the country, both their vigilance and the hours, by beating two 
 wooden cylinders, one against the other. They are also to watch 
 thieves, accidents of fire, and the like. 
 
 " During the sale, another guard, on purpose to watch accidents 
 of fire, is kept by our Ottona, his clerks, our landlords, the officers 
 of our exchequer, and the cooks. In their first round they knock 
 at every door,' to ask whether there be no Japanese hid within, and 
 to recommend to the occupants to take care of the fire. The Ot- 
 tona must be present at least once in the night, when, according to 
 the custom of the country, his fire-staff, hung about with iron rings, 
 as the badge of his authority, is carried rattling after him. The 
 Dutch also keep, at the same time, a watch of their own people, to 
 take care that their masters be not robbed by their Japanese guards. 
 
 " The Ship and Harbor Guard, appointed to have a general in- 
 spection over all foreigners, Chinese as well as Dutch, goes the round 
 of the harbor all night, particularly about our island. The Spy 
 Guard watches from the mountains back of the town the approach 
 of foreign ships. The Gate Guard keeps the gate towards the 
 town, that being the only passage in and out. It is mounted daily 
 by five persons, their servants not computed. At the time of the 
 sale of our goods there are never less than ten, but sometimes twelve 
 or more, and to these, its regular members, are added at that time 
 two persons from the ship and harbor guard, two from the spy 
 guard, four furnished by the town of Nagasaki, four by the silk 
 merchants, and two on the part of the two chief magistrates or 
 burgomasters of the lower town of Nagasaki, one of whom keeps 
 the journal of the guard, wherein (for the information of the gov- 
 ernors of the town, who, at least once a month, call for this record 
 and look it over) is entered what passes from hour to hour, and 
 what persons and things go in or out. Yet, without express orders 
 from the governors, or leave given by the Ottona, nothing is suffered 
 to pass through but what is sent in by those appointed to provide 
 us with necessaries and unprohibited goods. For a still greater 
 security, three sworn searchers are added to this guard, one or two 
 
JEALOUS VIGILANCE OVER THE DUTCH. 239 
 
 of whom attend constantly hard by the gate, to search whoever 
 goes in or ont. Nor is anybody exempted from being searched but 
 the governors, their deputies or commissioners, with their retinues, 
 and our ordinary interpreters and their sons, who are entered as 
 apprentices. 
 
 " Such a variety of people of different ranks and characters being 
 to do duty upon one guard, it obliges on the one side everybody to 
 discharge their duty to the. utmost of their power, and on the other 
 it puts the- government out of all apprehensions of their plotting or 
 conspiring together ; for, in fact, they are not only to watch us, 
 and the people who have business with us, and, on this account, go 
 in and out of our island, but each other also. Among the things 
 which stand by, or are hung upon the walls of the guard-house, are 
 irons to put on criminals, ropes to bind them, heavy staffs to beat 
 them, and a particular sort of an instrument, a kind of hook or rake, 
 which they make use of to catch thieves and deserters, and which is 
 commonly carried about at their public executions. 
 
 " All these people, although they maintain themselves and their 
 families entirely by what they get by us and our service, yet from 
 their conduct one would think them to be our sworn enemieSj 
 always intent to do us what mischief they can, and so much the 
 more to be feared, as their hatred and enmity is hid under the 
 specious color of friendship, deference and good-will. 
 
 " Considering that there are so very few Dutchmen left in the 
 island, one would imagine that the Japanese 'had no reason to be 
 uneasy, or anyways apprehensive of our conduct. Surely such a 
 small number of people, and those, too, deprived of arms and ammu- 
 nition (the very first thing which the Japanese take into their cus- 
 tody upon the arrival of our ships), would never take it into their 
 heads to make any attempt against the peace and tranquillity of the 
 empire. As to smuggling, they have too well prevented any 
 attempts of that kind, by taking not only an exact inventory of all 
 our goods and commodities, but by locking "them up under their 
 own locks and seals. Even the cloth and stuffs which are brought 
 over for our own use must be delivered into the custody of the 
 Ottona, till one of their own tailors, sworn for this purpose, cuts 
 them, allowing each of us just so much as will make him a good 
 suit. But what they have still less reason to be apprehensive of, is 
 
240 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690. 
 
 the subversion of their pagan doctrine and religion, so little con- 
 spicuous are the principles of Christianity in our lives and actions. 
 Nevertheless, so many guards, corporations, societies, with their 
 numerous attendants, all upon oath, and themselves jealous and 
 mistrustful one of another, are set to guard and narrowly to watch 
 us, as if we were the greatest malefactors, traitors, spies — in a word, 
 the worst and most dangerous set of people ; or, to make use of a 
 very significant expression of the Japanese, as if we were, what I 
 think we really are, Fitozitz, that is, the emperor's hostages." 
 
 It is to be observed that in different parts of his book Kampfer 
 appears in two distinct characters. Sometimes he seems to be the 
 mere surgeon of the Dutch factory, fully sharing and giving voice 
 to all the feelings and prejudices of that establishment, bring- 
 ing before us, in a very lively manner, the angry Dutch factors 
 grumbling over the new restrictions lately put upon the Dutch trade, 
 and especially the new precautions against smuggling. Elsewhere 
 he shows himself perfectly able to enter into all the views and feel- 
 ings of the Japanese ; and however angry he may occasionally 
 get at the obstacles encountered by himself, especially on the 
 part of the old chief interpreter, in his efforts to obtain a full 
 knowledge of Japanese affairs, he had evidently conceived a strong 
 liking for the Japanese people, and never fails to do them justice, 
 whether as individuals or as a nation. He composed, indeed, a for- 
 mal dissertation, originally published in his A?nce?iitates, in which 
 he enters into an elaborate defence of the policy of the Japanese in 
 their jealous exclusion of foreigners ; nor can any one who calls to 
 mind the consequences of that intercourse to the natives of Eastern 
 Asia and America, and especially the history of the late Anglo- 
 Chinese opium war, deny the plausibility at least of the argument. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 PARTICULAR STATEMENT AS TO THE DUTCH TRADE AS IT EXISTED IN KAMPFER 8 
 
 TIME. ARRIVAL OF THE SHIPS. UNLADING. PASSES. — IMPORTS. 
 
 COMPANY AND PRIVATE GOODS. KAMBANGS, OR PUBLIC SALES. DUTIES. 
 
 • — PROFITS. EXPORTS. DEPARTURE OF THE SHIPS. SMUGGLING. EXE- 
 CUTION OF SJtfUGGLEBS. 
 
 " The Dutch ships,'*' says Kampfer, " are expected some time in 
 September, towards the latter end of the south-west monsoon, that 
 being the only time proper for this navigation.* As soon as the 
 spy guards with their glasses discover a ship steering towards the 
 harbor, and send notice of her approach to the governors of Naga- 
 saki, three persons of our factory are sent with the usual attendance 
 to meet her about two miles without the harbor, and to deliver to 
 the captain the necessary instructions, from the director of our trade, 
 with regard to his behavior. 
 
 " The interpreter and the deputies of the governors demand forth- 
 with the list of the cargo and crew, as also the letters on board, 
 which are carried to Nagasaki, where the governors first examine 
 and then deliver them to our director. 
 
 " The ship follows as soon as possible, and, having entered the 
 narbor, salutes both imperial guards with all her guns, and casts 
 anchor opposite to the town, about a musket-shot from our island. 
 If the wind be contrary, rowing-boats (kept for this purpose by the 
 common people of the town) are sent at our expense, but not at our 
 desire, to tow her in by force. In still weather they send about 
 ten of these boats ; if it be stormy, and the wind contrary, they 
 
 * Along the east coast of Asia, and as far north as the southern coasts of 
 Japan, the winds, during the six months from Api-il to September inclusive, 
 blow from south-west to north-cast. This is called the south-west monsoon. 
 During the other six months they blow from north-east to south-west. Thifl 
 is called the north-east monsoon. 
 
 21 
 
242 JAPAN. — a, D. 1690. 
 
 increase the number to fifty, and sometimes to a hundred — so many 
 as they think necessary — that is, at least twice the number there is 
 occasion for. 
 
 " "When the ship has entered the harbor, two guard-boats, with a 
 good number of soldiers, are put one on each side of her, and con- 
 tinued, being mounted with fresh troops every day, till she leaves. 
 As soon as the ship drops anchor, great numbers of officers come 
 on board to demand our guns, cutlasses, swords and other arms, as 
 also the gunpowder packed up in barrels, which are taken into their 
 custody, and kept in a store-house, built for this purpose, till her 
 departure. They attempted, also, in former times, to take out the 
 rudder, but, having found it impracticable, they now leave it in. 
 
 " The next day after her arrival, the commissioners of the gov- 
 ernor come on board, with their usual attendance of soldiers, inter- 
 preters, and subordinate officers, to make an exact review, in pres- 
 ence of our director, of all the people on board, according to the 
 list which hath been given them, and wherein is set down every 
 one's name, age, birth, place of residence, and office, examining 
 them from top to toe. Many questions are asked, as to those who 
 died on the voyage, when and of what distemper they died. Even 
 now and then a dead monkey or parrot may occasion a strict in- 
 quiry to be made after the cause and manner of their death, and 
 they are so scrupulous that they will not give their verdict, without 
 sitting upon the body itself, and carefully examining it. 
 
 " After this, the orders of our director, and likewise of the gov- 
 ernors of Nagasaki, relating to our behavior with regard to the 
 natives, are read in Low Dutch, and afterwards, for every one's 
 inspection, stuck up in several places on board the ship, and at 
 Desima. The same rules are observed with all our ships, of which 
 there are two, three, or four, sent from Batavia to Japan every 
 year, according to the quantity of copper they have occasion for ; 
 one of which goes first to Siam, to make up part of her cargo with 
 the commodities of that country. Formerly, when the Dutch as 
 yet enjoyed a free trade, they sent seldom less than six or seven 
 ships, and sometimes more. 
 
 " The review being over, they proceed to unlade the ships, dur- 
 ing which, several of the governors' officers, a chief interpreter, a 
 deputy interpreter, and an apprentice, besides several clerks and 
 
DUTCH TRADE. 24< 
 
 inferior officers, remain on board, taking possession of every corner, 
 to see tkat nothing be carried away privately. The water gates of 
 our island, through which the cargo is to be brought in, are opened 
 in presence of the karoo, that is, high commissioners of the gov- 
 ernors, and their retinue. So long as the gates are kept open, the 
 karoo, with their deputies and other assistants, stay in a room 
 built for this purpose, not far off. The whole body of interpreters, 
 as also our landlords, clerks, and other officers of our island, give 
 their attendance, and also their assistance, at that time. They fall 
 to work with three hundred or more kuli, or workmen — always at 
 least twice the number there is occasion for. The unlading of 
 every ship ought to be performed in two days, but, notwithstanding 
 the number of men they employ, they generally make a three days' 
 work of it, in order to make it so much the more beneficial -to the 
 town. 
 
 " The goods are brought from the ship in boats, kept for this 
 purpose only, at the Company's expense. Being brought within 
 the water gates, they are laid before the commissioners, who set 
 them down in writing, count them, compare them with the list that 
 hath been given in (opening a bale or two of each .sort, picked out 
 from among the rest), and then order them to be locked up, under 
 their seal, in the Company's warehouse, until the day of sale. The 
 trunks, belonging to private persons, are set down at the entry of 
 the island, and there opened and examined. If the owner doth not 
 forthwith appear with the key, they proceed, without any further 
 ceremony, to open them with axes. All vendible goods are taken 
 out and locked up under their seals. Some other things, also, 
 which they do not approve of, as, for instance, arms, stuff, and 
 cloth wrought with gold and silver, as also all contraband goods, 
 are taken into custody by the Ottona, who returns them to the 
 owner upon his departure. 
 
 "No European, nor any other foreign money, and, in general, 
 nothing that hath the figure of a cross, saint, or beads, upon it, is 
 suffered to*pass. If any such thing should be found upon any of 
 our people, it would occasion such a confusion and fright among the 
 Japanese, as if the whole empire had been betrayed. I have 
 already taken notice that, upon our drawing near the harbor, every 
 one is obliged to deliver his prayer-books, and other books of 
 
244 JAPAN. A. D. 1690. 
 
 divinity, as also all European money, to the captain, who packs 
 them all up in an old cask, and hides them. 
 
 " Those who are newly arrived must suffer themselves, in going 
 in or coming out of our island, to be searched, whether or no they 
 have any contraband goods about them. Every one who wishes to 
 go on board, whether it be for his own private business, or in the 
 Company's service, is obliged to take out a pass-board from the 
 commissioners at the water gates, and, in like manner, when he 
 returns on shore, he must take out another from those on the ship. 
 
 " At night, when the commissioners sent on board the ship return 
 with their retinue to Nagasaki, the cabin is sealed up in their pres- 
 ence, and all the Dutchmen accurately counted over, to see that 
 there be none wanting, which would occasion a very great confu- 
 sion. During my stay in Japan it happened that a common sailor 
 unfortunately was drowned in the night, nobody perceiving his fall- 
 ing into the water. At the review made the next morning (for it 
 is constantly made every morning and night) the fellow was missed. 
 This unlucky accident suddenly stopped all proceedings, and the 
 fear lest it should be a Roman Catholic priest, who had made his 
 escape into the country, occasioned such a consternation among the 
 Japanese, that all the officers ran about, scratching their heads, and 
 behaving as if they had lost their senses, and some of the soldiers in 
 the guard-ships were already preparing to rip themselves open, 
 when at last the unlucky fellow's body being taken up from the 
 bottom of the harbor put an end to their fears. 
 
 " At all other times, that for lading and unlading our ships 
 excepted, the water gates are shut, by which means all communica- 
 tion is cut off between those that stay on board and those that 
 remain on shore. The ship's cargo having been placed in the ware- 
 houses, the goods lie there till they are pleased, in two or three 
 days of sale, which they call Kambang, to sell them. What re- 
 mains unsold is carried back to the warehouses, and kept there 
 against the next year's sale. 
 
 " The following goods are imported by us : raw silk,»from China, 
 Tonquin, Bengal, and Persia ; all sorts of silks, woollen, and other 
 stuffs (provided they be not wrought with gold and silver) ; Brazil 
 wood ; buffalo, and other hides : ray skins, wax, and buffalo horns 
 from Siam ; tanned hides from Persia, Bengal, and other places, 
 
DUTCH TRADE. 245 
 
 but noi e from Spain and Manilla, under pain of incurring their 
 utmost displeasure ; pepper ; sugar, in powder and candied ; cloves ; 
 nutmegs ; camphor, from Borneo and Sumatra ; quicksilver ; cin- 
 nabar ; saffron ; lead ; saltpetre ; borax ; alum ; musk ; gum ben- 
 zoin ; gum lac ; rosmal, or storax liquida ; catechu, commonly called. 
 Terra Japonica; fustic; corals; amber; right antimony (which 
 they use to color their china ware) ; looking-glasses, which they cut 
 up to make spy-glasses, magnifying glasses, and spectacles, out of 
 them. Other things of less note are snakewood ; mangoes, and 
 other unripe East India fruits, pickled with Turkish pepper, garlic, 
 and vinegar; black lead and red pencils; sublimate of mercury (but 
 no calomel) ; fine files ; needles ; spectacles ; large drinking-glasses 
 of the finest sort ; counterfeit corals ; strange birds, and other 
 foreign curiosities, both natural and artificial. Some of these are 
 often sold in private, by sailors and others, without being produced 
 upon the Kambang, and in this case the Dutch make no scruple to 
 get as much for them beyond their real value as possibly they can. 
 
 " Of all the imported goods, raw silk is the best liked, though it 
 yields the least profit of any. All sorts of stuffs and cloths yield a 
 considerable apd sure profit, and should there be never so much 
 imported, the consumption in so populous a country would be still 
 greater. Brazil wood and hides are also to be disposed of to very 
 good advantage. The most profitable commodities are sugar, 
 catechu, storax liquida, camphor of Borneo (which they covet above 
 all other sorts), looking-glasses, &c, but only when they have occa- 
 sion for them, and when the Chinese have imported in small quan- 
 tities. Corals and amber are two of the most valuable commodities 
 in these eastern parts ; but Japan hath been so thoroughly provided 
 by smugglers, that at present there is scarce fifty per cent, to be 
 got upon them, whereas formerly we could sell them, ten, nay, a 
 hundred times dearer. The price of these things, and of all natural 
 and artificial curiosities, varies very much, according to the number 
 and disposition of the buyers, who may be sure to getcent percent, 
 clear profit by them, at what price soever they buy them." 
 
 "The yearly sum to the value of which the Dutch are permitted 
 
 to sell goods imported by them is, by Japanese reckoning, three 
 
 hundred chests of silver, each of a thousand taels, or in gold fifty 
 
 thousand kobangs; the highest value of the kobang, as current in 
 
 21* 
 
246 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690.. 
 
 Japan, being sixty mas, or six taels. But the Japanese having 
 obliged the Dutch East India Company to accept payment in gold 
 kobangs, each reckoned at sixty-eight mas, the sales of the Com- 
 pany, though made to the amount of three hundred thousand taels 
 in silver, produced only forty-four thousand one hundred and 
 eighteen kobangs." 
 
 A chance was thus afforded, as Kampfer expresses it, "to make 
 the officers concerned in carrying on the Dutch trade some amends 
 for their trouble and hard usage, by allowing them to dispose of 
 goods on their own private account," to the value of five thousand 
 six hundred and eighty-two kobangs, equivalent, at the reckoning 
 of fifty-eight mas, to forty thousand taels, thus making up the fifty 
 thousand kobangs, to the amount of which the annual sale of Dutch 
 goods was limited ; and as this arrangement for private trade had 
 been made by the Japanese, the East India Company did not ven- 
 ture to interfere with it. 
 
 At the head of these officers stands the Director, or, as he is called 
 by the Japanese, Captain of the Dutch ( Gapitan Hollanda), who 
 has the command, inspection, and care of the trade. The same 
 person is the head of the embassy sent to court once every year; 
 and, according to the custom of the country, he must be relieved 
 after the year is expired. The ships from Batavia bring over his 
 successor, with some few merchants and clerks, to assist during the 
 sale, after which, the old director goes on board, to return to Bata- 
 via. The privilege of private trade was, in Kampfer's time, divided 
 as follows: The acting director could sell to the extent of ten thou- 
 sand taels; the new director to the extent of seven thousand; his 
 deputy, or the next person after him, to the extent of six thousand. 
 The captains of the ships, the merchants, clerks, &c, shared the 
 remainder, as they happened to be in favor with the chief managers, 
 and the Japanese interpreters. 
 
 " The day of the Kambang (as they call our sale), which must 
 be determined by the court, drawing near, a list of all the goods is 
 hung up at the gates without our island, written in very large 
 characters, that everybody may read it at a due distance. Mean- 
 while, the government signifies to the several Ottonas of the town, 
 and these to the merchants, who are come thither from diverse parts 
 of the empire, what duty per cent, will be laid for the benefit of 
 
KAMBANG OR PUBLIC SALE. 247 
 
 the inhs.bitants of Nagasaki, upon eacli description of our goods, iu 
 order to enable them to determine what price they can afford tc 
 offer. The day before the Kambang, papers are put up at all the 
 gates of the streets, to invite the merchants to make their appear- 
 ance the next morning at Desima, where, for their further informa- 
 tion, they find before every house a list of the goods laid up in it 
 As the direction of our trade is entirely in the hands of the govern- 
 ment of Nagasaki, so, particularly, the Kambarig cannot be held 
 but in presence of two stewards of the governors, authorized by 
 them to assist at it. The chief officers of our island must likewise 
 be present. The first interpreter presides, and directs everything, 
 while our own triumvirs — I mean the two directors, the old and 
 new — and the deputy director, have little or nothing to say. 
 
 " All persons who must be present at the sale having met together, 
 our directors order samples of all our goods to be exposed to view, 
 and then give a signal with a gum-gum, a sort of flat bell, not 
 unlike a basin, for the merchants to come in. The house where 
 the sale is kept is a very neat building, built at the Company's 
 expense, and is then, by removing the shutters, laid open towards 
 the street for people to look in. There is a small gallery reund it, 
 and it is divided within into several partitions, very commodiously 
 contrived for this act. 
 
 " The sale itself is performed in the following manner. Only 
 one sort of goods is put up at a time. Those who have a mind 
 to buy them give in some tickets, each signed by feigned names, 
 and signifying how much they intend to give for a piece, or a 
 katti, of the article on sale. I took notice that every merchant 
 gives in several tickets. This is done in order to see how matters 
 are like to go, and to keep to a less price in case he repents 
 of the greater, for which purpose they are signed only by feigned 
 names ; and, because of the great number and subdivision of the 
 small coin, it seldom haj>pens that two tickets exactly agree. 
 After all the bidders have given in their tickets, our directors 
 proceed to open and assort them. They are then delivered to 
 the presiding chief interpreter, who reads them aloud, one after 
 another, beginning with the highest. He asks after the bidder 
 three times, and, if there is no answer made, he lays that ticket 
 aside and takes the next to it. So he goes on, taking always a 
 
248 JAPAN. — A. U. 1690. 
 
 less, till the bidder cries out, Here I am, and then draws near to 
 sign the note, and to put his true name to it with black ink, which 
 the Japanese always carry about thern. The goods first put up 
 being sold, they proceed to others, which they sell in the same 
 manner ; and so they go on till the sum determined by the emperor 
 hath been raised, which is commonly done in two or three, seldom 
 in four, days of sale. The day after each Kambang the goods 
 are delivered to the buyer, and carried off. A company of mer- 
 chants of the five imperial cities have obtained the monopoly for 
 buying and selling raw silks, of which they would fain oblige us to 
 make up at least one third of our cargoes. 
 
 " The duty or custom levied upon goods has been introduced at 
 Nagasaki, merely with an intent to take off part of the vast profits 
 which foreigners get upon their commodities, and to assign them 
 for the use and maintenance of the poorer inhabitants of the town, 
 among whom it is distributed in proportion to the trouble they must 
 be at, on account of the public offices they must serve by turns. 
 They commonly receive in this distribution from three to fifteen 
 taels each. The duty laid upon the goods belonging to the Com- 
 pany is fifteen per cent., producing forty-five thousand taels. The 
 goods belonging to private persons, which are commonly sold |t the 
 end of the Kambang, pay much more — no less than sixty-five per 
 cent, upon goods sold by the piece, and sixty-seven per cent, on 
 goods sold by weight. Rating each sort at half the whole amount, 
 and the whole produce is twenty-seven thousand taels. The reason 
 they give for the difference in the rate of duty is, because private 
 goods are brought over in the Company's ships, at the Company's 
 expense, and, consequently, deserve less profit. The Chinese, for the 
 like reason, — that is, because they are not at the expense of such long 
 and hazardous voyages as the Dutch, but are nearer at hand, — pay 
 a duty of sixty per cent, for all their goods, which brings in a sum of 
 three hundred and sixty thousand taels duty. If to this be added the 
 yearly rent for our houses and factories, which is five thousand five 
 hundred and eighty taels, and that of the Chinese factory, which is 
 sixteen thousand taels, it makes up in all a sum of four hundred 
 and fifty-three thousand five hundred and eighty taels [upwards of 
 half a million of dollars], which the foreign commerce produces 
 annually to the magistrates and inhabitants of Nagasaki. 
 
PROFITS OF THE DUTCH TRADE. 249 
 
 " The profits our goods produce may be computed to amount, 
 one year with another, to sixty per cent., though, if all the charges 
 and expenses of our sale be taken into consideration, we cannot 
 w T ell get above forty or forty-five per cent, clear gain. Considering 
 so small a profit, it would scarcely be worth the Company's while 
 to continue this branch of our trade any longer, were it not that 
 the goods we export from thence, and particularly the refined cop- 
 per, yield much the same profit, so that the whole profit may be 
 computed to amount to eighty or ninety per cent. 
 
 " The goods belonging to private persons being brought over 
 and sold without any expense to the owner, the gain therefrom, not- 
 withstanding the great duty laid upon them, is no ways inferior to 
 that of the Company. The two chief directors have the greater 
 share of it. They cannot hold their offices longer than three years, 
 and that not successively, being obliged, after they have served one 
 year, to return with the homeward-bound ships to Batavia, whence 
 they are sent back again, either by the next ships, or two years 
 after. If the directors stand upon good terms with the chief inter- 
 preter, and have found ways and means to secure his favor, by 
 making him large presents at the Company's expense, he can con- 
 trive things so that some of their goods be put up and sold upon 
 the'first or second Kambang, among the Company's goods, and so, 
 by reason of the small duty, produce sixty-five to seventy per cent, 
 profit. This, too, maybe done without any prejudice to the Com- 
 pany; for, in casting up die sums paid in for goods, these articles 
 are slipped over. If they have any goods beyond the amount they 
 are legally entitled to, chiefly red coral, amber, and the like, it is 
 an easy matter to dispose of them in private, by the assistance of 
 the officers of the island, who will generally themselves take them 
 off their hands. The Ottona himself is very often concerned in 
 such bargains, they being very advantageous. Formerly, we could 
 sell them by a deputy to the persons who came over to our island 
 at the time of our Kamhang, and that way was far the most profits 
 able for us. But one of our directors, in 1GSG, played his cards 
 so awkwardly that ten Japanese were beheaded for smuggling, and 
 he himself banished the country forever. 
 
 " The residing director, who goes also as ambassador to the em- 
 peror's court, hath, besi }es, another very considerable advantage 
 
250 JAPAN. A. D. 1690. 
 
 in that such presents as the governors of Nagasaki desire to be 
 made to the emperor, not to be found in the Company's warehouses, 
 and therefore to be bought, can be furnished by him out of his own 
 stock, if it so happens that he hath them, in which case he takes all 
 the profit to himself, without doing any prejudice to the Company. 
 Nay, they might possibly go still further in pursuit of their own pri- 
 vate advantages, were it not that they endeavor to pass for men of 
 conscience and honor, or, at least, aim to appear fearful lest they 
 should be thought too notoriously to injure both the confidence and 
 interest of their masters. I do not pretend hereby to charge them 
 with any indirect practices as to the annual expenses, though per- 
 haps even those are sometimes run up to an unnecessary height; 
 nor is it in the least my intention to detract from the reputation 
 and character of probity of so many worthy gentlemen, who have 
 filled this station with honor, and discharged their duty with the 
 utmost faithfulness to their masters. Thus much I can say without 
 exaggeration, that the directorship of the Dutch trade in Japan is 
 a place which the possessor would not easily part with for thirty 
 thousand guilders (twelve thousand dollars). 'T is true, it would 
 be a great disadvantage to the director, and considerably lessen his 
 profits, if he hath not a good cash in hand to provide himself, before 
 his departure from Batavia, with a sufficient stock of goods, but 
 must take them upon credit, and upon his return share the profits 
 with his creditors. Besides, he must not presume to leave Batavia, 
 much less to return thither, without valuable considerations to his 
 benefactors, unless he intends to be excused for the future the honor 
 of any such employment. The goods he brings back to Batavia 
 are silk gowns, which he receives as presents from the emperor and 
 his ministers, and whereof he makes presents again to his friends 
 and patrons, victuals, china ware, lackered or japanned things, and 
 other manufactures of the country, which he can dispose of at Batavia 
 at fifty per cent, profit ; and besides some kobangs in gold ; though 
 if he have any left it is much more profitable to buy ambergris,* or 
 
 . * Ambergris is a substance thrown up from the stomachs of whales suffer- 
 ing from dyspepsia or some other disease. It is much employed in the East 
 in the preparation of perfumes and sweetmeats, and once had considerable 
 reputation in Europe. Its true nature was for a long time in dispute. The 
 Japanese understood it, as appears from their name of the article, Kusera* 
 no-fung ; that is, whale's excrements. 
 
DUTCH RETURN CARGOES. 251 
 
 refined copper, and to send the latter, if possible, on board the Com- 
 pany's ships to Malacca. I say if possible, because there are strict 
 orders from the Company against it. 
 
 " But it is time at last to send our ships on their return. To 
 make up their cargoes we buy from twelve thousand to twenty 
 thousand piculs of refined copper, cast in small cylinders, a span 
 long and an inch thick, each picul packed in a fir box. We buy, 
 likewise, a small quantity of coarse copper, delivered to us in broad 
 flattish round cakes, and sometimes we take in some hundred piculs 
 or chests of copper kasies or farthings, but not unless thej, be asked 
 for at Tonquin and other places. All the copper is sold to us by a 
 company of united merchants, who, by virtue of a privilege from the 
 emperor, have the sole refining and selling of it to foreigners. 
 
 "The other part of our cargo is made up of Japanese camphor, 
 from six thousand to twelve thousand, and sometimes more, pounds a 
 year, packed up in wooden barrels ; of some hundred bales of china 
 ware packed in straw ; of a box or two of gold thread, of an hundred 
 rolls to the box; of all sorts of japanned cabinet-boxes, chests of 
 drawers, and the like, all of the very best workmanship we can 
 meet with ; of umbrellas, screens and several other manufactures, 
 made of canes, wood, buffalo and other horns, hard skins of fishes, 
 which they work with uncommon neatness and dexterity, stone, cop- 
 per, gold and Sowas, which is an artificial metal, composed of 
 copper, silver and gold, and esteemed at least equal in value to sil- 
 ver. To these may be added paper made transparent with oil and 
 varnish ; paper printed and colored with false gold and silver for 
 hanging of rooms ; rice, the best to be had in Asia ; saki, a strong 
 liquor brewed from rice ; soy, a sort of pickle, fit to be eat at table 
 with roasted meat; pickled fruits packed in barrels; indented 
 tobacco ; tea, and marmalades ; besides some thousand kobangs 
 of gold in specie. The exportation of the following articles 
 is strictly forbidden. All prints, pictures, goods or stuffs, bearing 
 the emperor's coat-of-arms. Pictures and representations, printed 
 and others, of soldiers and military people, of any person belong- 
 ing to the court of the Dairi, or of Japanese ships ; maps of 
 the empire or any part of it ; plans of towns, castles, temples and 
 the like; all sorts of silk, cottoa and hempen stuffs; all sorts of 
 
252 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690. 
 
 arms, including those made in Japan after European patterns ; car- 
 penter's knives ; silver. 
 
 " Our ships cannot be laden, nor set sail, till special leave has 
 been given, and the day of their departure determined by the court. 
 When they are laden, all our private goods and what else we have 
 to bring on board, mus.t be again narrowly searched. For this 
 purpose, two of our landlords, two apprentices of the interpreters, 
 and two clerks, with some kulis, or workmen, about two or three 
 days before the departure of the ships, call upon every one in his 
 room, as well those who stay at Desima as those who are to return, 
 and who, during the time of sale, have been lodged in our empty 
 houses. These people visit every corner, and examine all our 
 things piece by piece, taking an exact memorandum of what they 
 find ; then they bind them together with straw ropes, and put their 
 seals to them, along with a list of what the parcel contains, for the 
 information of the gate-guard, who would else open them again. 
 All contraband goods are seized at this search. Should any of 
 these be found upon any Dutchman, the possessor would be at 
 least banished the country for life, and the interpreters and serv- 
 ants appointed for his service and all other suspected persons would 
 be put to the rack, till the seller and all his accomplices were dis- 
 covered, by whose blood only is such a crime to be expiated. Of 
 this we had a late instance in the imperial steward's own secretary, 
 who, having endeavored to send over some cimeter blades to China, 
 was executed for it, with his only son, not above eight years old. 
 Upon my own departure, although my things, for good reasons, 
 were visited but slightly, and over a bottle, yet they seized upon an 
 old Japanese razor and a few other things, just because they hap- 
 pened to see them. 
 
 " The day determined for the departure of our ships drawing 
 near, they proceed to lade their cargoes one after another. Last 
 of all, the arms and powder are brought on board, followed by the 
 ship's company, who must again pass in review according to the 
 list which was given in upon the ship's arrival. The ship being 
 ready, she must weigh her anchors that instant and retire two 
 leagues off the town towards the entrance of the harbor, where she 
 rides till the other ships are laden in the same manner. When all 
 the homeward-bound ships are joined, they proceed on their voyage, 
 
DEPARTURE OF THE DUTCH SHIPS. 253 
 
 and, after they have gotten to the main sea, to a pretty considerable 
 distance from the harbor, the Japanese ship-guard, which never 
 quitted them from their first arrival till then, leave them and 
 return home. If the wind proves contrary to the ships' going out, 
 a good number of Japanese rowing boats, fastened to a rope, tow 
 them out by force one after another. For the emperor's orders 
 must be executed in spite of wind and weather, should even after- 
 wards all the ships run the hazard of being wrecked. 
 
 " All these several strict orders and regulations of the Japanese 
 have been made chiefly with an intent to prevent smuggling.* The 
 penalty put upon this crime is death without hope of reprieve ; but 
 it extends only to the person convicted and his accomplices, and not 
 to their families, as the punishment of some other crimes does. And 
 yet the Japanese are so addicted to it, that, according to computa- 
 tion, no less than three hundred persons have been executed in six 
 or seven years' time for smuggling with the Chinese, whose depart- 
 ing junks they follow to the main sea, and buy of them at a low 
 price what goods they could not dispose of at their sale at Naga- 
 saki. But these unhappy wretches are almost as frequently caught 
 by the Japanese boats particularly appointed for that purpose, and 
 delivered up to justice at Nagasaki, which constantly proves severe 
 and unmerciful enough." 
 
 Not long after Kiimpfer's arrival in Japan, eleven smugglers 
 were caught in one boat, and brought to Nagasaki, where they 
 were executed a few clays after. On the 28th of Dec, 1691, 
 twenty-three persons suffered death for smuggling, ten of whom 
 were beheaded, and the others crucified. Among the latter were 
 five who, upon being taken; made away with themselves, to avoid 
 the shame of an unavoidable public execution ; but their bodies 
 were nevertheless preserved in salt, on purpose to be afterwards 
 fixed to the cross. During Kampfer's stay in Japan, which was 
 not above two years, upwards of fifty smugglers lost their lives. 
 
 " Though there are not many instances of people executed for 
 smuggling with the Dutch, yet such a case occurred in 1791, 
 when," says Kampfer, " two Japanese were executed on our island 
 for having smuggled from a Dutchman one pound of camphor of 
 Borneo, which was found upon the buyer just as he endeavored to 
 carry it off from our island. Early in the morning on .the day 
 22 
 
254 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690. 
 
 of execution the acting governor of Nagasaki sent notice by the 
 Ottona to our director to keep himself with the rest of the Dutch- 
 men in readiness to see the criminals executed. About an hour 
 after caine over the numerous flocks of our interpreters, landlords, 
 cooks and all the train of Desima, with the sheriffs and other offi- 
 cers of justice, in all to the number of at least two hundred people. 
 Before the company was carried a pike with a tablet, whereupon 
 the crime for which the criminals were to suffer was specified in 
 large characters. Then followed the two criminals, surrounded with 
 bailiffs. The first was the buyer, a young man of twenty-three 
 years of age, very meanly clad, upon whom the camphor was found. 
 The second was a well-looking man, and well clad, about forty years 
 of age, who suffered only for having lent the other, formerly a serv- 
 ant of his, the money to buy it with. 
 
 " One of the bailiffs carried an instrument upright, formed like a 
 rake, but with iron hooks instead of teeth, proper to be made use of 
 if any of the malefactors should attempt to make his escape, because 
 it easily catches hold of one's clothes. Another carried another 
 instrument proper to cut, to stab and to pin one fast to a wall. 
 Then followed two officers of the governor's court, with their reti- 
 nues, as commissioners to preside at this act, and at some distance 
 came two clerks. In this order they marched across our island to 
 the place designed for this execution. 
 
 " We Dutchmen, only seven in number (our ship being already 
 gone), resolved not to come near. But our director advised us to 
 go, as he had heard that on our refusal we would be compelled by 
 force. I followed this advice, and went without delay to see the 
 execution done. I found the two criniinals in the middle of the 
 place, one behind the other, kneeling, their shoulders uncovered, 
 and their hands tied to their backs. Each had his executioner 
 standing by him, the one a tanner (for tanners in this country do 
 the office of executioners), the other his best friend and comrade, 
 whom he earnestly desired, as the custom is in this country, by 
 doing him this piece of service, to confirm the friendship he had 
 always had for him. At about twenty paces from the criminals 
 sat the two commissioners upon one bench, and the two clerks upon 
 another. A third was left empty for our director, who, however, 
 did not appear. The rest of the people stood promiscuously where 
 
EXECUTION OF SMUGGLERS. 255 
 
 they pleased. I myself crowded with my Japanese servant as near 
 one of the malefactors as possibly we could. While they were 
 waiting for the rest of the Dutchmen I overheard a very extraordi- 
 nary discourse between the two criminals ; for as the elderly man 
 was gumbling between his teeth his Quanwoiijo, or short prayer 
 to the hundred-hand idol Quanwon, the other, to whom I stood 
 nearest, rebuked him for it. ' Fy ! ' said he. ' For shame, to appear 
 thus frightened out of your wits! ' 'Ah, ah!' says the other, 'I 
 only pray a little.' 'You have had time enough to pray,' replied 
 the first ; ' it serves no purpose now, but to expose yourself and to 
 show the Dutch what a coward you are ! ' and this discourse so 
 wrought upon the other that he actually left off praying. 
 
 " The minute that the Dutch were all assembled at the place of 
 execution, a signal was given, and that instant both executioners 
 cut off each his criminal's head, with a short cimeter, in such a 
 manner that their bodies fell forward to the ground. The bodies 
 were wrapped up, each in a coarse rush mat, and both their heads 
 together in a third, and so carried away from Desima to the ordi- 
 nary place of execution, a field not far from Nagasaki, where, it was 
 said, young people tried their strength and the sharpness of their 
 cimeters upon the dead bodies, by hacking them into small pieces. 
 Both heads were fixed upon a pole, according to custom, and 
 exposed to view for seven days. The execution being over, the 
 company marched off from Desima without any order. Our 
 director went to meet the two commissioners and afterwards 
 the two clerks upon the street, as they were returning home, 
 thanked them for the trouble they had been at on this occasion, 
 and invited them to his house to smoke a pipe ; but he had nothing 
 in return for this kind invitation but a sharp reprimand, with an 
 admonition to take care of his people, that no more such accidents 
 should happen for the future. This was the first time criminal 
 blood was shed upon our island." 
 
 The proceedings at the Chinese sales, and the articles imported 
 and exported by' them, were, according to Kiimpfer, much the same 
 as in the case of the Dutch, except that they were not allowed to 
 take away an r money, but merchandise only. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 NAGASAKI AND ITS VICINITY AS SEEN BY KAMPFER. — IMPERIAL GOVERN- 
 ORS. THEIR OFFICERS AND PALACES. MUNICIPAL SYSTEM. STREET 
 
 GOVERNMENT. MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 
 
 TAXES. GOVERNMENT OF OTHER TOWNS. ADJACENT COUNTRY. — THE 
 
 GOD SUWA AND HIS MATSURI. > — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 Kampfer, describes Nagasaki as situated upon an indifferent and 
 barren soil, amid rocks and steep hills or mountains. The harbor, 
 which has its head at the north of the city, where it is narrow and 
 shallow with a sandy bottom, soon grows broader and deeper. 
 "When about half a mile broad and five or six fathoms deep, it turns 
 to the south-west, and so runs on between high land and mountains 
 for about a mile (narrowing again to a quarter of a mile in 
 breadth), till it reaches an island or rather mountain surrounded by 
 water, which the Dutch call Papenburg. This, properly speaking, 
 is the entrance of the harbor, and here vessels lie at anchor to 
 watch a favorable opportunity of getting out, which would be 
 easily done in two hours were it not for the many banks, shoals 
 and cliffs, which make the passage equally difficult and dangerous. 
 
 " There are seldom less than fifty Japanese ships in this harbor, 
 besides some hundred fishing-vessels and small boats. Of foreign 
 ships there are seldom, some few months of the winter excepted, 
 less than thirty, most of which are Chinese junks. The Dutch 
 ships never stay longer than three months in autumn ; very seldom 
 so long. The anchorage is about a musket-shot from the town, 
 where ships ride at anchor upon the soft clay, with about six 
 fathom at high tide, and four and a half at low water. 
 
 " The town — situated where the harbor is broadest, and where, 
 from the change in its direction, it forms a nearly semi-circular shore 
 — has the r hape of a half-moon, somewhat inclining to a triangle. 
 
NAGASAKI. 257 
 
 Built along the shore in a narrow valley, formed by the opening of 
 the neighboring mountains, it is about three quarters of a mile long 
 and nearly as broad, the chief a*nd broadest street running nearly 
 that distance up the valley. The mountains which encompass it 
 are not very high, but steep, green to their tops, and of a very 
 agreeable aspect. Just behind the city, in going up the mountains, 
 are many stately temples, beautifully adorned with fine gardens and 
 terrace-walks. Higher up are innumerable burying-places. In the 
 distance appear other high mountains, fruitful and well cultivated. 
 In short, the whole situation affords to the eye a most delicious and 
 romantic view." * 
 
 The town is open, as are most other towns in Japan, without 
 either castle, walls or fortifications. Some bastions are built along 
 the harbor, as it were for defence, but they have no cannon. About 
 two miles from the town, seaward, just beyond the anchorage, are 
 two guard-houses, opposite each other, and enclosed by palisades. 
 They are held each by about seven hundred men, including those 
 who do duty in the harbor guard-boats. 
 
 "Three fresh-water rivers come down from the neighboring 
 mountains, and run through the town. For the greater part of 
 the year they have scarce water enough to irrigate some rice-fields 
 and to drive a few mills, though in rainy weather they are apt to 
 increase so as to wash away whole houses. They are crossed by 
 thirty -five bridges, great and small, twenty of stone and fifteen of 
 wood, very simple in their structure, being made more for strength 
 than show. 
 
 "The city is divided into two parts. TJtrimatz (the inner 
 town) consists of twenty-six Tsju, or streets, all very irregular, as 
 if built in the infancy of the city ; Sotomatz (or the outer town) 
 contains sixty-one streets, so that there are eighty-seven in all. 
 
 " The streets of Nagasaki and other towns in Japan have borrowed 
 their name, Tsju, from that of a Japanese measure of sixty fathoms 
 (three hundred and sixty feet) ; but, though generally short, they 
 are not all precisely of that length. These streets, or divisions of 
 streets, seldom containing more than sixty or less than thirty 
 
 * This corresponds Tvitli Siebold's description, who goes quite into rap- 
 tures at the first a ght he had, in 1825, of the hills about Nagasaki. 
 
 22* 
 
258 JAPAN. A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 houses, have gates at each end, which are always closed at night 
 and often in the day, when there is the least occasion for it. The 
 streets of Nagasaki are neither straight nor broad, but crooked, 
 dirty and narrow, leading some up and others down hill, on account 
 of the irregularity of the ground upon which the town is built. 
 Some of the steepest have stair-cases of stone. They are full stocked 
 with inhabitants, as many as ever they will hold. 
 
 " The houses of the common people are mean, sorry buildings, 
 small and low, seldom above one story high. If there be two 
 stories, the uppermost is so low that it scarce deserves the name. 
 The roof is covered with shavings of fir wood [shingles ?] fastened 
 by other pieces of wood laid across. Indeed, the whole structure is 
 of wood, as are most buildings throughout the empire. The walls 
 within are wainscoted and hung with painted and variously-colored 
 paper.* The floor is covered with mats wove of a considerable 
 thickness, which they take care to keep exceedingly clean and 
 neat. The rooms are separated from each other by movable 
 paper screens. Seats and chairs they have none, and only some 
 few household goods, chiefly such as are absolutely necessary for 
 daily use in the kitchen and at meals. Behind every house is a 
 back yard, which, though never so small, yet contains always some 
 curious and beautiful plants, kept with a great deal of care. 
 
 "The houses of eminent merchants, and of other rich people, are 
 of a far better structure, commonly two stories high, and built 
 after the Chinese manner, with a large court-yard before them and 
 a garden behind. 
 
 " The palaces of the two resident governors take in a large spot 
 of ground, standing something higher than the rest of the town. 
 The buildings are very neat and handsome, and all uniform ; strong 
 gates and well guarded lead into the court about which they are 
 arranged. 
 
 " Besides the governors' palaces there are some twenty other 
 houses in Nagasaki belonging to the principal nobility of the island 
 of Kiusiu, always occupied by some of their vassals, who take care 
 of them, and in which the owners lodge when they come to town. 
 
 * It would seem that E irope had derived the idea«of paper-hangings, as a, 
 substitute for tapestry, fr m Japan. 
 
NAGASAKI. 269 
 
 " The handsomest buildings belonging to townspeople are two 
 streets all occupied by courtesans. The girls in these establish- 
 ments, which abound throughout Japan, are purchased of their 
 parents when very young. The price varies in proportion to their 
 beauty and the number of years agreed for, which is, generally 
 speaking, ten or twenty, more or less. They are very commodi- 
 ously lodged in handsome apartments, and great care is taken to 
 teach them to dance, sing, play upon musical instruments, to write 
 letters, and in all other respects to make them as agreeable as pos- 
 sible. The older ones instruct the young ones, and these in their 
 turn serve the older ones as their waiting-maids. Those who make 
 considerable improvement, and for their beauty and agreeable 
 behavior are oftener sent for, to the great advantage of their 
 masters, are also better accommodated in clothes and lodging, all at 
 the expense of their lovers, who must pay so much the dearer for 
 their favors. The price paid to their landlord or master is from 
 one mas to two itzubo (twelve and a half cents to four dollars), for 
 a night, beyond which they are forbid to ask under severe penal- 
 ties. One of the sorriest must watch the house over night in a 
 smali room near the door, free to all comers upon the payment of 
 one mas. Others are sentenced to keep the watch by way of pun- 
 ishment for their misbehavior. 
 
 " After having served their time, if they are married, they pass 
 among the common people for honest women, the guilt of their 
 past lives being by no means laid to their charge, but to that of 
 their parents and relations who sold them in their infancy for so 
 scandalous a way of getting a livelihood, before they were able to 
 choose a more honest one. Besides, as they are generally well 
 bred, that makes it less difficult for them to get husbands. The 
 keepers of these houses, on the contrary, though possessed of never 
 so plentiful estates, are forever denied admittance into honest com- 
 pany." 
 
 Kampfer enumerates of public buildings three large wooden ship- 
 houses, in which are kept three imperial junks or men-of-war, 
 equipped and ready for launching; a powder-magazine on a hill 
 opposite the town, and a city prison. There are also sixty-two 
 temples, within and without the town — five for the worship of the 
 Kami- or ancient national gods of Japan, seven of the Jamabos- 
 
260 JAPAN. A. X>. 1690—16*2. 
 
 or mountain priests, and fifty Tiras, temples of four different 
 Buddhist sects or observances, including the three temples erected 
 by the Chinese, as mentioned in a previous chapter. 
 
 " These temples are sacred not only to devotion and worship, 
 but serve also for recreation and diversion, being for this purpose 
 curiously adorned with pleasant gardens, elegant walks, and fine 
 apartments, and by much- the best buildings of the town. The 
 Buddhist temples are not so much to be commended for their large- 
 ness or splendor as for their pleasant and agreeable situations, being 
 moreover adorned within with fine raised altars, gilt images as big 
 as life, lackered columns, gates and pillars, the whole very neat 
 and pretty rather than magnificent. 
 
 " Those who attend the service of the Kami temples, though not 
 collected into monasteries, like the Buddhist clergy, but secular 
 and married persons, yet assume to themselves a far higher degree 
 of holiness and respect than they think the common bulk of secular 
 persons deserve. They live with their families in houses built for 
 them in the descent of the mountains. Their way of life, as well 
 as their common dress at home and abroad, is no ways different 
 from that of the other inhabitants, except that they do not sHave 
 their heads, but let their hair grow, and tie it together behind. 
 When they go to the temple they dress in an ecclesiastical habit, 
 with various head-dresses, according to every one's office and qual- 
 ity. They maintain themselves by the alms and offerings given 
 them by those who come to worship in their temples, or at their 
 appearance in solemn processions. 
 
 " The ecclesiastics of the Buddhist religion have no processions 
 nor other public solemnities, like the Sinto clergy. They always 
 keep within the district of their convent, where they mind little 
 else but their prayers in the temple at certain stated hours. Their 
 maintenance arises from the fees given them for prayers to be said 
 in their temples, or at funerals for the relief of departed souls, as 
 also from voluntary and charitable contributions." 
 
 The gardens in and about the city and the neighboring villages 
 abundantly furnish it with all sorts of fruits, vegetables and roots*- 
 with firewood, and also with some venison and poultry ; but the 
 domestic supply of rice is insufficient, and that capital article has to 
 be imported fr m the neighboring provinces. The harbor and 
 
NAGASAKI. 261 
 
 neighboring coast yield plenty of fish and crabs. The rivers that 
 run through the town provide it with clear and sweet water, " very 
 fit," says Kampfer, " for daily drink ; " the saki, or rice beer, as it 
 is brewed in Japan, being too strong, and that in particular made 
 at Nagasaki of a disagreeable taste." # 
 
 Except articles made of gold, silver and Sawaas, — a mixture of 
 gold, silver and copper, — for the foreign trade, manufactures at 
 Nagasaki are not so good as in other parts of the empire ; and yet 
 everything is sold dearer, chiefly to foreigners. 
 
 The inhabitants are mostly merchants, shop-keepers, tradesmen, 
 handicraftsmen, artificers, brewers, besides the numerous retinue of 
 the governors, and the people employed in the Dutch and Chinese 
 trade, by which, in fact, the town is mainly supported. There are 
 many poor people and beggars, most of them religious mendicants. 
 
 " The town," says Kampfer, " is never without a great deal of 
 noise. In the day, victuals and other merchandise are cried up and 
 down the streets. Day-laborers and the seamen in the harbor 
 encourage one another to work with a certain sound. In the night 
 the watchmen and soldiers upon duty, both in the streets and har- 
 bor, show their vigilance, and at the same time indicate the hours 
 of the night, by beating two pieces of wood against each other. The 
 Chinese contribute their share chiefly in the evening, when they 
 burn some pieces of gilt paper, and throw them into the sea, as an 
 offering to their idol, or when they carry their idol about its temple ; 
 both which they do with beating of drums and cymbals. But all 
 this is little compared with the clamor and bawling of the priests 
 and the relations of dying or dead persons, who, either in the house 
 where the corpse lies, or else upon certain days sacred to the 
 deceased's memory, sing a Nimada, that is, a prayer, to their god 
 
 • * According to Haganaar this saki is flavored with honey or sugar. It is 
 vei*y Seating and heavy. Saris describes it as almost as strong as aqua 
 vitae. It appears to be very various in quality and strength, quite as much 
 bo as European ale or beer. The yeast from this saki is largely used for 
 preserving fruit and vegetables. The acid of it penetrates the fruit or vege- 
 table, giving it a peculiar flavor, of which the Japanese are very fond. 
 
 The Japanese are very fond of social drinking parties ; but, according to 
 Caron, no drunken brawls occur, each person taking himself quietly off as 
 soon as he finds that he has enough or too much. 
 
262 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692 
 
 Amida* with a loud voice, for the relief of his soul. The like is 
 done by certain fraternities or societies of devout neighbors, friends 
 or relations, who meet by turns in their houses, every day, in the 
 morning or evening, in order to sing the Nimada by way of precau- 
 tion for the future relief of their own souls. 
 
 Nagasaki, down to the year 1688, had, like the other imperial 
 cities, two governors, commanding by turns ; the one not in the im- 
 mediate exercise of authority being resident meanwhile at Jedo. 
 In 1688, the policy was adopted of having three governors ; two to 
 be always resident at Nagasaki, to watch each other, and presiding 
 alternately for two months, while the third was to come in each 
 alternate year from Jedo to relieve the senior resident.! The resi- 
 dent governors leave their families at Jedo as hostages for their good 
 behavior, and, during the time of their absence from court, are 
 strictly prohibited, so it is stated, to admit any woman within their 
 palaces. The establishments of these imperial governors, as 
 described by Kampfer, may probably be taken as a specimen of 
 the ordinary way of life with the higher order of Japanese 
 officials. Their salary did not exceed fifteen hundred or two thou- 
 sand kokf of rice (in money, the price of the article being very va 
 riable, from seven thousand to ten thousand taels) ; but the per- 
 quisites were so considerable that in a few years they might get 
 vast estates, did not the presents which must be made to the em- 
 peror and the grandees of the court consume the greater part of 
 their profits. Out of their allowance they were obliged to maintain 
 an extensive retinue, — two Karoo, or stewards of the household, 
 ten Joriki, all noblemen of good families, who acted both as civil 
 and military officers, and thirty Doosiu, likewise military and civil 
 officers, but of inferior rank. 
 
 The business of the Joriki was to assist the governor with their 
 advice, if required, and to execute his commands, either as military 
 officers or as magistrates. They had, besides their food and a new 
 
 * This prayer, or invocation, unintelligible to the Japanese, is, as our 
 modern Orientalists have discovered, good Sanscrit. 
 
 t Another change, simultaneous with the restrictions upon Dutch and 
 Chinese trade, -was the selection of the governors from the military and 
 noble class, instead of from the mercantile class, as had previously been the 
 case. 
 
GOVERNORS OF NAGASAKI. 263 
 
 Buit annually, an allowance of one hundred taels a year ; but this 
 hardly sufficed to enable them to keep the servants necessary to 
 their dignity, such as a pike-bearer, a keeper of their great sword, 
 and a shoe or slipper bearer, and much less to maintain a family. 
 The Doosiu were a sort of assistants to the Joriki. They served as 
 guards, and did duty on board ship, especially in the guard-boats, 
 either as commanding officers or as privates. Sometimes they did 
 the office of bailiffs or constables, and put people under arrest, for 
 Which purpose they always carried a halter about them. Their 
 yearly allowance, beside their board, did not exceed fifty tael, out 
 of which they must maintain each a servant.* 
 
 The governors had still other domestics, of inferior rank, to dress 
 and undress them, to introduce visitors, and to bring messages, 
 besides numerous menial servants. 
 
 At the entrance of their palaces, within the court-yard, a guard 
 was kept of four or five Doosiu. No domestic could leave the house 
 without taking from its place in the guard-room a square wooden 
 tablet, which he hung up again on his return, so that it could be 
 known at a glance how many and who were absent. Within the 
 great door, or main entrance into the house, another guard was kept 
 -4jy some of the Joriki, one of whom had charge of a book, in which 
 he entered, as the custom is at the houses of persons of rank, the 
 names of all who go in or out, for the information of the master of 
 the house, who sometimes at night examines the entries. 
 
 The governor's equipage and attendance when going abroad con- 
 sisted of a led horse, a Norimon, in which he was carried, by the 
 side of which walked four of the gentlemen of his bedchamber, and 
 behind it two pike-bearers, followed by a train of Karoo, Joriki 
 and Doosiu, with their own servants and attendants. 
 
 KiUnpfer thus describes the persons who held the office of govern- 
 ors *\{' Nagasaki at his arrival in Japan — "Kawayuts Tsina-Kami 
 is a handsome, well-shaped man, about fifty years of age, cunning 
 and malicious, and a great enemy of the Dutch (who ascribed to 
 
 
 * These Joriki and Doosiu seem to be the same officers spoken of in the 
 subsequent Dutch narratives as goba.njosi [said to mean government over 
 seeing officers], or by corruption, banjoses, upper and under. The D;osiu 
 or Doosen seem to be the same with the imperial soldiers. 
 
264 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 him the authorship of the new arrangement for their trade), an 
 unjust and severe judge, but an agreeable, liberal and happy cour- 
 tier, with an income from his private estates of four thousand 
 seven hundred kokf. Juww Oka Tsussimu-no-Kami had formerly 
 been a high constable, and had been rewarded with his present 
 office for his services in clearing Jedo of thieves and pickpockets. 
 He had a private revenue of two thousand kokf. He is about 
 sixty, short, sincere, humble, and very charitable to the poor, but 
 with so much of his old profession about him, that he often orders 
 his domestics to be put to death without mercy for very trifling 
 faults. Mijuki Tononomo, also about sixty, is a man of great 
 generosity and many good qualities, with a private estate of four 
 thousand kokf of yearly revenue." 
 
 To watch the governors, an imperial officer, called Daiquan, was 
 appointed to .reside at Nagasaki, and a like service was required of 
 all the chief lords of the island of Ximo. 
 
 To secure the harbor and town these same lords were bound to 
 march with their vassals at the first alarm. The princes of the 
 provinces of Figen and Chichugen were obliged to furnish alter- 
 nately, each for a year, the guard at the entrance of the harbor, 
 which was independent of the governors. The inhabitants of the 
 water-side streets of Nagasaki supplied the Funaban or ship-guard 
 with its guard-boats to watch foreign ships in the harbor. There 
 was another fleet of boats employed ordinarily in whale-fishing, but 
 whose business it also was to see all foreign vessels well off. the 
 coast, to guard against and to arrest smugglers, and to prevent 
 any foreign vessels from touching elsewhere than at Nagasaki. 
 Finally, there was the spy-guard, stationed on the top of the 
 neighboring mountains, to look out for the approach of foreign ves- 
 sels ; and on one of these hills was a beacon, which, being fired, 
 served; in connection with other similar beacons, to telegraph alarms 
 to Jedo. 
 
 Next in rank to the governors were four mayors or burgomas- 
 ters, whose office, like most others, had become hereditary, and two 
 deputy-mayors, principally for the affairs of the new town. They 
 would seem to have once been the actual chief magistrates, but 
 their authority had been greatly eclipsed by that of the imperial 
 governors. There were also four other officers annually appointed to 
 
STREET GOVERNMENT. 2QL 
 
 solicit the interests of the town's people at the court of the govern- 
 ors, and to keep them informed of the daily proceedings of the 
 majors', for which purpose they had a small room at the governor's 
 palace, where they were always in waiting. 
 
 There was no town-house nor other public place of* assembly. 
 When the magistrates met on business, it was at the presiding 
 mayor's house. Besides the various bodies of interpreters and others, 
 connected with the foreign trade, there was a particular corporation 
 of constables and bailiffs, consisting of about thirty families, who 
 lived in a street by themselves. Their office was reputed military 
 and noble, and they had the privilege of wearing two swords, — a 
 privilege which the mayors and mercantile people did not possess. 
 
 The tanners, obliged to act also as public executioners, were held 
 in execration, yet they also wore two swords. They lived in a 
 separate village near the place of execution, placed as everywhere 
 in Japan at the west end of the town. 
 
 But the most remarkable thing in the municipal government of 
 Nagasaki (and the same thing extended to all the other Japanese 
 towns) was the system of street government, mentioned in the nar- 
 ratives of Don Bodrigo, Caron, and others, but which Kampfer 
 more particularly describes. 
 
 The house-owners of every street were arranged in companies, or 
 corporations, of five, or sometimes a few more, each street having 
 from ten to fifteen such companies. None but house-owners were 
 admitted into these corporations ; mere occupants were looked upon 
 as dependents on their landlords, with no voice in the affairs of the 
 street, nor right to claim 1 any share in the public money, though 
 they paid high rents. Each street company had one of its number 
 for a head, who was responsible for the conduct of his four com 
 p'anions, and obliged, in certain cases at least, to share the punish- 
 ment of their crimes. The members of these corporations chose 
 from among themselves an Ottona, or chief magistrate of the street. 
 The choice was by ballot, and the name of the person having the 
 greatest number was presented to the governor, with a humble 
 petition that he might be appointed to the office, of which the 
 salary in Nagasaki was a ten-fold share of the annual distribution 
 to the inhabitants, derived from the duties on the foreign trade. 
 
 The duty of the Ottona was, to give the necessary orders in case 
 23 
 
266 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 _ __ . , . _ , — . — 
 
 of fire ; to have the oversight of the watch ; to keep a register of 
 the deaths, births, marriages, arrivals, departures, &c. ; to arrest 
 criminals, and to punish those of smaller magnitude ; to compose, 
 if he could, all disputes among the people of his street ; and gener- 
 ally to be personally answerable for their good behavior. He had 
 for assistants three lieutenants, the heads of the corporations of 
 house-owners, a secretary, a treasurer and a messenger. A guard 
 was kept every night, of three or more house-owners, while the street 
 was paced by two sentinels, walking from each gate till they met, 
 and then back. The hours were regularly in the daytime struck 
 on a bell hung for that purpose on the ascent of the mountains, and 
 during the night the street-watch indicated them by beating two 
 sticks together* 
 
 The street officers were held responsible for the offences of the 
 house-owners ; the houjse-owpers for the offences of their lodgers, 
 
 * The Japanese division of time is peculiar. The clay, from the beginning 
 of morning twilight to the end of evening twilight (so saysSiebold, correcting 
 former statements, which give instead sunrise and sunset) , is divided into six 
 hours, and the night, from the beginning to the end of darkness, into six 
 other hours. Of course the length of these hours is constantly varying. 
 Their names (according to Titsingh) are as follows : Kokonots, noon and 
 midnight ; Yaats, about our two o'clock ; JVanats, from four to five; Mouts- 
 douki, end of the evening and commencement of morning twilight; Itsous, 
 eight to nine ; Yoots, about ten ; and then Kokonots again. Each of these 
 nours is also subdivided into four parts, thus,: Kokonots, noon or midnight ; 
 Kokonots-fan, quarter past ; Kokonots-fan-souki, half past ; Kokonots-fan- 
 souki-maye, three quarters past ; Yaats, commencement of second hour ; 
 Yaats-fan, &c, and so through all the hours. 
 
 The hours are struck on bells, Kokonots being indicated by nine strokes, 
 preceded (as is the case also with all the hours) by three warning strokes, 
 to call attention, and to indicate that the hour is to be struck, and followed, 
 after a pause of about a minute and a half, by the strokes for the hour, be- 
 tween which there is an interval of about fifteen seconds — the last, however, 
 following its predecessor still more rapidly, to indicate that the hour is 
 struck. Yaats is indicated by eight strokes, JVanats by seven, Mouts-douki 
 by six, Itsous by five, and Yoots by four. Much speculation has been re- 
 sorted to by the Japanese to explain why they do not employ, to indicate 
 hours, one, two, and three strokes. The obvious answer seems to be, that 
 while three strokes have been appropriated as a forewarning, their method of 
 indicating that the striking is finished would not be available, if one and 
 two strokes designated the first and second hours. 
 
FIGURE-TREADING. 267 
 
 domestics, and families ; masters for servants ; children for parents 
 each corporation for its individual members ; neighbors for each 
 other.* It was naturally a part of this system that no new 
 inhabitant was admitted into any street, except by consent of all 
 the house-owners in it, which thus became necessary to every pur- 
 chase and sale of a house. 
 
 Every year, a list was made out by the street officers of all the 
 inhabitants in each street, with their religion, shortly after which 
 came the ceremony of Jejumi, or figure-treading — that is, tram- 
 pling upon the crucifix, an image of the Virgin Mary, and other 
 saints — a ceremony which appears to be observed, at least at Na- 
 gasaki, down even to the present day. The images used in Kamp- 
 fer's time were about a foot long, cast in brass, and kept in a par- 
 ticular box for that purpose. The ceremony took place in the pres- 
 ence of the street officers. Each house was entered by turns, two 
 messengers carrying the box. The images were laid upon the bare 
 floor, and, the list of the household being called over, they were 
 required, one by one, to tread upon them. Young children, not 
 yet able to walk, were held in their mothers' arms, so as to touch 
 the images with their feet. It has been asserted that the Dutch 
 were obliged to submit to this ceremony ; but the fact was not so. 
 
 To prevent smuggling, whenever the foreign ships or junks set 
 sail, the street gates of Nagasaki were shut, and kept closed till the 
 ships were out of the harbor, strict searches being made, at uncertain 
 times, on which occasions e^ry inhabitant of the street was obliged 
 to report himself. The same thing took place when criminals were 
 searched for, or other investigations, sometimes very frivolous ones, 
 were made. On these and other occasions of alarm, no one could 
 go from one street into another, except with a written pass, and 
 attended by an officer ; nor could an inhabitant of Nagasaki at any 
 time leave the city without a similar pass and an undertaking on 
 the part of his neighbors for his return within a specified time. 
 
 * Caron implies that it was only as to state offences that this mutual re- 
 sponsibility exists. According to Guysbert, in his account of the persecution 
 . at Nagasaki, if a converted priest was discovered, not only the householder 
 concealing him was held responsible, but the two nearest householders on 
 either side, though not only ignorant of the fact, but pagans. This strict 
 system was v sry effectual for the purposes of the persecution. 
 
268 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 Accused persons were often made to confess by torture. Capital 
 punishments were either by beheading or crucifixion. Other pun- 
 ishments — and this class was often inflicted for the misdemeanors 
 of others — were imprisonment, for longer or shorter periods, ban* 
 ishment to certain desolate spots and islands, and forfeiture of 
 property and office. Punishments were prompt and severe ; yet 
 great regard was had to the nature of the offence, the condition of 
 the person who committed it, and the share of guilt to be reason- 
 ably laid to the charge of his superiors, relations, or neighbors. 
 The practice of making young children suffer with their parents 
 was possibly intended as much in mercy to them as to aggravate 
 the punishment of the real offenders.* It is by this same motive 
 of humanity, that the Japanese justify their practice of exposing 
 such infants as they have not the means or inclination to support 
 and educate. 
 
 Persons sentenced to death could not be executed without a 
 warrant signed by the council of state at Jedo, which must like- 
 wise be consulted in all affairs of moment, provided they admit of 
 the delay necessary to send a courier and receive an answer. This, 
 however, did not prevent the governors of Nagasaki, and other high 
 officers, from liberally exercising the right of life and death in the 
 case 'of their own immediate servants and retainers. All servants, 
 indeed, were so far at the disposal of their masters, that, if they 
 were accidentally killed while undergoing punishment, the master 
 was not answerable. Yet, in general, as in China, homicide, even in 
 self-defence or undesigned, must be expiated by the blood of the 
 offender, and even his neighbors were, in many cases, held to a 
 certain extent responsible. 
 
 " Some will observe," says Kampfer, " that the Japanese are 
 wanting in a competent knowledge of the law. I could heartily 
 wish, for my part, that we Europeans knew as little of it as 
 they, since there is such an abuse made of a science highly useful 
 in itself, that innocence, instead of being relieved, is often still more 
 oppressed. iThere is a much shorter way to obtain justice in Japan, 
 
 * It "would seem from Guysbert, that the participation by young children in 
 the death decreed against the parents, was rather the act of those parents 
 who had the power of life and death over their children, and who did not 
 ch« :>se to part with them in this extremity. 
 
TAXATION. 26^ 
 
 and, indeed, all over the East ; — no necessity for being at law for 
 many years together, no occasion for so many writings, answers, 
 briefs, and the like. The case is, without delay, laid before th6 
 proper court of judicature, the parties heard, the witnesses exam* 
 ined, the circumstances considered, and judgment given without loss 
 of time. Nor is there any delay to be apprehended from appeal- 
 ing, since no superior court hath the power to mitigate the sentence 
 pronounced in another, though inferior. And, although it cannot 
 be denied but that this short way of proceeding is liable to some 
 errors and mistakes in particular cases, yet I dare affirm that in 
 the main it would be found abundantly less detrimental to the 
 parties concerned than the tedious and expensive law-suits in 
 Europe." • 
 
 Certain yearly contributions, under the name of free gifts, were 
 paid by all the house-owners and office-holders of Nagasak* partly 
 as perquisites to the governor and other officers, and partly for 
 municipal purposes. So far as the house-owners were concerned, 
 it amounted to a regular tax, levied according to the size of the 
 lots ; but this sort of levy was said to be unknown in other cities 
 of the empire, and at Nagasaki was much more than made up for 
 by the surplus share of the house-owners in the duty levied on the 
 foreign trade, which, after paying all particular services and muni- 
 cipal expenses, was divided among them. The only other tax was 
 an imperial ground-rent on the house-lots — four mas (fifty cents), 
 in the old town, and six mas (seventy-five cents) in the upper town, 
 for every kin (very nearly six English feet) of frontage, where the 
 depth was not more than fifteen kin. On every lot exceeding that 
 depth the tax was double.. This is stated by Kampfer to be the only 
 town tax levied throughout the empire, whether in the towns of 
 the imperial domain, or in those belonging to particular lords, and 
 the city of Miako, by a particular privilege, was exempt even from 
 this. 
 
 A municipal police, similar to that of Nagasaki, was /established 
 in all the other towns, boroughs, and villages, with this difference 
 only, that the magistrates, though invested with the same power, 
 were, perhaps, known by different names, and that their adminis- 
 tration was, in general, much less strict than at Nagasaki. 
 
 The adjacent country was under the control of an imperial 
 23* 
 
270 JAPAN. A. D. 1G90— 1692. 
 
 — s 
 
 steward (the same forming a part of the imperial domains), who 
 collected the rent, forming, with the house-tax, the entire imperial 
 revenue. This rent amounted to four parts in ten of the crop ; 
 whereas inferior landlords exacted six parts in ten. Grain was 
 delivered in kind ; garden grounds, orchards and woods, paid a 
 compensation in money. 
 
 We may close this account of Nagasaki with a description of 
 the Matsuri, or public spectacle exhibited on the birth-day of the 
 god Suwa, the patron of the city, one of the occasions on which the 
 Dutch were permitted to leave the island of Desima, for the pur- 
 pose of witnessing the spectacle. This festival was, and still is, 
 celebrated at the expense of ten or eleven streets, uniting each year 
 for that purpose ; so that every street is called upon thus to con- 
 tribute once in seven or eight years, except that in which the cour- 
 tesans reside, which must pay every year. The celebration consists 
 in processions, plays, dances, &c, and as something new must 
 always be got up, at least in the way of dress, it is attended with 
 heavy expense. 
 
 The temple of Suwa, according to Kampfer's description, stands 
 not far from the town, upon the mountain Tutla. A fine stair-case, 
 of two hundred stone steps, leads up to it. The temple court, 
 somewhat lower than the Mia itself, extends down the declivity of 
 the mountain. At the entry of this court, next the gate, is a long, 
 open room, or gallery, where plays are acted, for the diversion both 
 of Suwa and his worshippers. This room is curiously adorned with 
 many pictures and carved images, placed there by devout worship- 
 pers in fulfilment of vows made in some moment of exigency. 
 Further off stand some small chapels of wood, clean and neat, but 
 without ornaments. In the same court stand the temples of Mu- 
 rasaki and Simios, each of whom has also his Mikosi, or small 
 eight-angular shrine, curiously adorned, and hanging in beautiful 
 polls, wherein their images or relics' are carried about upon festi- 
 vals. Kampfer also observed, in the same enclosure, another small 
 chapel, built in honor of the god and lord of thousand legs, hung 
 about with numbers of his clients, that is, with legs of all sorts and 
 sizes, given by his worshippers. 
 
 There are several festivals sacred to Suwa, of which the chief il 
 
suwa's matsuri. 27: 
 
 on the seventh, eighth, and ninth days of the ninth month.* On 
 the eighth the god is diverted in his temple, at the expense of rich 
 and devout people, with a musical concert, performed by boys beat- 
 ing upon drums and bells — the very same music made use of to 
 appease the supreme kami Tensio Dai Sin, when, out of disdain 
 and anger, she hid herself in a cavern, and thereby deprived the 
 world of light and sunshine.! 
 
 * The Japanese year begins at the new moon nearest to the fifth of Feb- 
 ruary (the middle point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox). 
 For an account of the Japanese calendar, see p. 85. 
 
 t According to Klaproth's statement of Japanese legend, in his Histoire 
 Mythologique, introductory to Titsingh's Annals of the Dairi, the first 
 three of the celestial gods were solitary males. The next three had female 
 companions, yet produced their successors by the force of mutual contem- 
 plation only. The seventh pair found out the ordinary method of gener- 
 ation, of which the first result was the successive production of eight 
 islands, those of Japan (the number eight being »selected simply because it 
 is esteemed the most perfect), after which they gave birth also to mountains, 
 rivers, plants, and trees. To provide a ruler and governor for these crea- 
 tions, they next produced Tensio dai sin, or, in Japanese (for Tensio dai 
 sin is Chinese), Ama terasu-no-kami (Celestial Spirit of Sunlight); but, 
 thinking her too beautiful for the earth, they placed her in the heavens, as they 
 did, likewise, their second born, a daughter, also, Tsouki-no-kami, goddess 
 of the moon. Their third child, Ybis san-ro, was made god of the sea ; their 
 fourth child, Sosan-no-ono, also a son, god of the winds and tempest. He 
 was agreeable enough when in good humor, and at times had his eyes filled 
 with tears, but was liable to such sudden outbreaks and caprices of temper 
 as to render him quite unreliable. It was concluded to send him away to 
 the regions of the north ; but before going he got leave to pay a visit to his 
 sisters, in heaven. At first he had a good understanding with them, but 
 soon committed so many outrages, — in the spring spoiling the flower borders, 
 and in the autumn riding through the ripe corn on a wild horse, — that in 
 disgust Tensio dai sin hid herself in a cavern, at the mouth of which she 
 placed a great stone. Darkness forthwith settled over the heavens. The 
 eight hundred thousand gods, in great alarm, assembled in council, when, 
 among other expedients, one of their number, who was a famous dancer, 
 was set to dance to music at the mouth of the cavern. Tensio dai sin, out 
 of curiosity, moved the stone a little, to get a look at what was going on, 
 when immediately Ta tsikara o-no kami (god of the strong hand) caught 
 hold of it, rolled it away, and dragged her out, while two others stretched 
 ropes across the mouth so that she could not get in again. Finally the 
 matter was compromised by clipping the claws and hair of Sosan-no-ono, 
 after which he was sent off to the north, though not till he had killed a 
 
272 JAPAN. A. D. 1690— 1C92. 
 
 The great festival of the ninth consists of processions through the 
 principal streets, and spectacles exhibited in a temporary building 
 of t bamboo, with a thatched roof, open towards the square on which 
 it is erected. " The whole building," says Kampfer, " scarcely de- 
 serves to be compared to one of our barns, it is so mean and simple, 
 for it must be purposely built according to the sorry architecture of 
 their indigent ancestors. A tall fir is planted on each side of the 
 . front of this temple, and three sides of the square are built round 
 with benches and scaffolds for the convenience of spectators. 
 
 " Everything being ready, the Sinto clergy of the city appear in 
 a body, with a splendid retinue, bringing over in procession the 
 Mikosi of their great Suwa, as, also, to keep . him company, that 
 of Symios. Murasaki is left at home, as there is no instance in 
 the history of his life and actions from which it could be inferred 
 that he delighted in walking and travelling. 
 
 " The Sinto clergy, upon this occasion, style themselves Ootomi — 
 that is, the high great retinue — which pompous title, notwithstanding 
 
 dragon, married a wife, and become the hero of other notable adventures. 
 This legend makes it clear what An giro, the first Japanese convert meant, 
 by speaking of the Japanese as worshippers of the sun and moon. See ante, 
 p. 49. The annual festival of Tensio dai sin falls on the sixteenth day of 
 the ninth month, immediately after that of Suwa, and is celebrated through- 
 out the empire by matsuri much like that described in the text. The six- 
 teenth, twenty-first, and twenty-sixth days of every month are likewise sacred 
 to her, but not celebrated with any great solemnity. 
 
 Kampfer mentions as the gods particularly worshipped .by the mercan 
 tile class — 1. Jebisu (or, as Klaproth writes it, Ybis-san-ro) , the Neptune 
 of the country, and the protector of fishermen and seafaring people, said to 
 be able to live two or three days under water. He is represented sitting on 
 a rock, with an angling-rod in one hand and the delicious fish, Tax, or 
 Steinbrassin (Sparus Aurata, the Japanese name, signifies red lady) in the 
 other. 2. Daikoku, commonly represented sitting on a bale of rice, with his 
 fortunate hammer in his right hand, and a bag laid by him to put in what 
 he knocks out ; for he is said to have the power of knocking out, from what- 
 ever he strikes with his hammer, whatever he wants, as rice, clothes, money, 
 &c. Klaproth states him to be of Indian origin, and that his name signifies 
 Great Black. 3. Tositoku, represented standing, clad in a large gown with 
 long sleeves, with a long beard, a huge forehead, large ears, and a fan in hia 
 right hand. Worshipped at the beginning of the new year, in hopes of obtain- 
 ing, by his assistance, success and prosperity. 4. Fotei, represented with a 
 huge belly, and supposed to have in his gift health, riches, and children. 
 
SUVA'S MATSURI. 27^ 
 
 the alms-chest is one of the principal things they carry in the pro* 
 cession, and, indeed," says Kiimpfer, " to very good purpose, for 
 there is such a multitude of things thrown among them by the 
 crowds of superstitious spectators, as if they had a mind out of 
 mere charity to stone them. 
 
 " When they come to the place of exhibition, the ecclesiastics 
 seat themselves, according to their quality, which appears in good 
 measure by their dress, upon three benches, built for them before 
 the front of the temple. The two -superiors take the uppermost 
 bench, clad in black, with a particular head ornament, and a short 
 staff, as a badge of their authority. Four others, next in rank, sit 
 upon the second bench, dressed in white ecclesiastical gowns, with a 
 black lackered cap, something different from that worn by their 
 superiors. The main body takes possession of the third and lower- 
 most bench, sitting promiscuously, and all clad in white gowns, with 
 a black lackered cap, somewhat like those of the Jesuits. The 
 servants and porters appointed to carry the holy utensils of the 
 temple, and other people who have anything to do at this solemnity, 
 stand next to the ecclesiastics, bareheaded. 
 
 " On the other side of the square, opposite to the ecclesiastics, 
 sit the deputies of the governors, under a tent, upon a fine mat, 
 somewhat raised from the ground. For magnificence sake, and out 
 of respect for this holy act, they have twenty pikes of state planted 
 before them in the ground. 
 
 "The public spectacles on these occasions are a sort of plays, 
 dct£d by eight, twelve, or more persons. The subject is taken out 
 of the history of their gods and heroes. Their remarkable adven- 
 tures, heroic actions, and sometimes their love intrigues, put in 
 verse, are sung by dancing actors, whilst others play upon musical 
 instruments. If the subject be thought too grave and moving, 
 there is now and then a comic actor jumps out unawares upon the 
 stage, to divert the audience with his gestures and merry discourse 
 in prose. Some of their other plays are composed only of ballets, 
 or dances, like the performance of the mimic actors on the Roman 
 stage. For the dancers do not speak, but endeavor to express the 
 contents of the story they are about to represent, as naturally as 
 possible, both by their dress and by their gestures and actions, reg- 
 ulated according to the sound of musical instruments. The chief 
 
274 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 subjects of the play, such as fountains, bridges, gates, houses, gar- 
 dens, trees, mountains, animals, and the like, are also represented, 
 some as big as the life, and all in general contrived so as to be 
 removed at pleasure, like the scenes of our European plays.* 
 
 " The actors are commonly girls, taken out of the courtesans' 
 houses, and boys from those streets at whose expense the solem- 
 nity is performed. They are all magnificently clad, in variously 
 colored silken gowns, suitable to the characters they are to present ; 
 and it must be owned that, generally speaking, they act their part 
 with an assurance and becoming dexterity, not to be exceeded, nay, 
 scarce to be paralleled, by the best European actors. 
 
 " The streets which bear the expense make their appearance in 
 the following order : First of all is carried a rich canopy, or else an 
 umbrella, made of silk, being the palladium of the street. Over it, 
 in the middle, is placed a shield, whereupon is writ, in large char- 
 acters, the name of the street. Next to the canopy follow the 
 musicians, masked, and in proper liveries. The music is both vocal 
 and instrumental. The instruments are chiefly flutes of different 
 sorts, and small drums ; now and then a large drum, cymbals and 
 bells, are brought in among the rest. The instrumental music is so 
 poor and lamentable, that it seems much easier to satisfy their 
 gods than to please a musical ear. Nor is the vocal part much 
 preferable to the instrumental, for although they keep time toler- 
 ably, and sing according to some notes, yet they do it in so very 
 slow a manner that the music seems to be rather calculated to 
 regulate their action, and the motions of their body in their ballets 
 and dances, wherein they are very ingenious and dexterous, and 
 little inferior to our European dancers, excepting only that they 
 seem to want a little more action and swiftness in their feet. 
 
 " The musicians are followed by the necessary machines and the 
 whole apparatus for the ensuing representations, the largest being 
 carried by laboring people, the lesser — as benches, staffs, flowers, 
 and the like — by the children of the inhabitants, neatly clad. 
 Next follow the actors themselves, and after them all the inhab- 
 itants of the street in a body, in their holiday clothes and garments 
 
 * On the whole, and from the play-bills presently given, the performance 
 would seem to be a good deal like that of Pyramus and Thisbe, in the Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream. 
 
DRAMATIC EXHIBITIONS. 275 
 
 of ceremony. To make the appearance so much the greater, the 
 procession is closed by a considerable number of people, who carry 
 stools, and other things, walking two and two. 
 
 " The dances and shows of each street commonly last about three 
 quarters of an hour, and, being over, the company marches off in 
 the same order they came in, to make way for the appearance and 
 shows of another street, which is again followed by another, and so 
 on. All the streets strive to outdo each other in a magnificent 
 retinue and surprising scenes. The processions and shows begin 
 early in the morning, and the whole ends about noon." 
 
 The following were among the presentations by the different 
 streets at the matsuri at which Kampfer was present. 
 
 1. " Eight young girls, clad in colored gowns, interwove with 
 large white flowers, with broad hats, as if to defend them from the 
 heat of the sun, with fans and flowers in their hands, dancing by 
 turns. They were from time to time relieved by a couple of old 
 women dancing in another dress. 
 
 2. "A garden, with fine flowers on each side of the place where 
 the act was performed, a thatched house in the middle, out of which 
 jumped eight young girls, dressed in white and red, dancing, with 
 fans, canes, and flower-baskets. They were relieved by a very 
 good actress, who danced by herself. 
 
 3. " Eight triumphal chariots, with oxen before them, of differ- 
 ent colors, the whole very naturally represented, and drawn by 
 young boys, well clad. Upon them stood a Tsulaki tree, in flower ; 
 a mountain, covered with trees ; a thicket of bamboos, with a tiger 
 lurking ; a load of straw, with an entire tree, with its root and 
 branches ; a whale, under a rock, half covered with water. Last 
 of all, another mountain appeared, with a real boy, magnificently 
 clad, who stood at the top, under an apricot-tree in full blossom, 
 This mountain was again drawn by boys. 
 
 4. " Some dancers, acting between six flower-beds, which, and a 
 green tree, were drawn upon the place by boys. Nine other boys, 
 in the same dress, and armed each with two swords and a musket ; 
 a peasant, dancing. 
 
 5. " A mountain, carried upon men's shoulders ; a fountain, with 
 a walk round it ; a large cask, and a house, were severally set upon 
 the place. Then two giants, masked, with prodigious great heads^ 
 
276 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G90— 1692. 
 
 representing some Indian deities, began a dance. They were met 
 soon after by a third, of a still more monstrous size, who came forth 
 out of the mountain, armed with a great broad-sword. He was 
 followed by seven Chinese, jumping out of the same mountain, 
 though to all appearance quite small, and dancing about in com- 
 pany with the giants. After some time spent in dances, the great 
 monstrous giant beat the cask to pieces, out of which came a young 
 boy, very handsomely clad, who, after a fine long speech, which he 
 delivered in a very graceful manner, danced with the giant alone. 
 Meanwhile, three monkeys, with roe's heads, crept out of the foun- 
 tain, and, jumping on the walk round it, performed a dance, mimick- 
 ing that of the giant and boy. This done, every one returned to 
 his place, and so the scene ended. 
 
 0". " The pompous retinue of a prince, travelling with his son, 
 very naturally represented by boys. 
 
 7. " Several huge machines, accurately resembling, both in size 
 and color, the things they were to represent, but made of a thin 
 substance, so that one man could easily carry one upon his back. 
 But, besides this load on the back, every one of these men had a 
 very large drum hanging before him, which some others played 
 upon with bells. After this manner they crossed the stage, danc- 
 ing, though not very high, because of their load. The things which 
 they carried were, a well, with all the implements for extinguishing 
 fires ; a large church-bell, with the timber work belonging to it, 
 and a dragon wound round it for ornament's sake ; a mountain, 
 covered with snow, and shaped like a dragon, with an eagle on the 
 top ; a brass gun, "weighing twenty-four pounds, with all the tackle 
 belonging to it ; a heavy load of traveller's trunks, packed up in 
 twelve straw balls, according to the country fashion ; a whale in a 
 dish ; several shell fish and fruits, as big as the life, carried each 
 by one person." 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 KAMPFER'S TWO JOURNEYS TO COURT. — PREPARATIONS. PRESENTS. JAP 
 
 ANESE ATTENDANTS. PACKING THE BAGGAGE AND RIDING ON HORSEBACK- 
 
 JAPANESE LOVE OF BOTANY. ACCOUTREMENTS. ROAD-BOOKS. NOR- 
 
 IMONS AND CANGOS. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 Mention has already been made of the custom established in 
 Japan, that all the governors of imperial cities and of provinces, 
 and, indeed, all the Daimio and Siomio — that is, nobles of the 
 first and second rank — should, once a year, make a journey to 
 court ; those of the first rank to pay their respects and make 
 presents to the emperor in person, and those of the second rank to 
 salute his chief ministers, assembled in council. 
 
 •In this respect the director of the Dutch trade is placed on the 
 same footing with the superior nobility, and his journey to court, 
 accompanied by a physician, a secretary or two, and a flock of 
 Japanese attendants of various ranks, affords the Dutch the only 
 opportunity they have of knowing anything by their own personal 
 observation, beyond the vicinage of Nagasaki 
 
 Kampfer made this journey twice — the first time in 1691, and 
 again in 1692 — and, notwithstanding the strict surveillance under - 
 which the Dutch are kept, his observations were highly curious. 
 Besides a journal of his daily route, he gfves a general summary 
 of all that he observed, containing a great deal of curious informa 
 tion, the most interesting part of which is copied in this and the 
 following chapters, nearly in his own words : 
 
 " The first thing to be done, is to look out proper presents for 
 his imperial majesty, for his privy councillors, and some other great 
 officers at Jedo, Miako and Osaka, the whole amounting, as near 
 as possible, to a certain sum, to assort them, and particularly to 
 assign to whonl they are to be delivered. Afterwards they must 
 24 
 
278 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 be put up into leather bags, which are carefully wrapped up in 
 mats, in order to preserve them from all accidents in so long a 
 journey ; and, for a further security, several seals are affixed to 
 them. 
 
 " It is the business of the. governors of Nagasaki to judge and 
 determine what might prove acceptable to the court. They take 
 out of the goods laid up in our warehouses what they think 
 proper, and give instructions to the departing director about such 
 things as should be sent over frem Batavia the next year. Some- 
 times some of their own goods they have been presented with by 
 the Chinese are put in among these presents, because by this means 
 they can dispose of them to the best advantage, either by obliging 
 us to buy them at an excessive and their own price, or by exchang- 
 ing them for other goods. Now and then some uncommon curiosi- 
 ties, either of nature or art, are brought over from Europe, and 
 other parts of the world, on purpose to be presented to the emperor ; 
 but it often happens that they are not approved of by these rigid 
 censors. Thus, for instance, there were brought over, in my time, 
 two brass fire-engines of the newest invention, but the governors 
 did not think them proper to be presented to the emperor, and so 
 returned them to us, after they had first seen them tried, and take,n 
 a pattern of them* Another time the bird Casuar t was sent over 
 from Batavia, but likewise disliked and denied the honor of appear- 
 ing before the emperor, because they heard he was good for nothing 
 but to devour a large quantity of victuals. 
 
 "These presents are placed on board a barge, three or four 
 weeks before our departure, and sent by water to Simonoseki, a 
 small town at the south-western extremity of the great island of 
 Nipon, where they wait our arrival by land. Formerly our ambas- 
 sador, with his whole r#inue, embarked at the same time, whereby 
 we saved a great deal of trouble and expense we must now be at 
 in travelling by land ; but a violent storm having once put the whole 
 
 * Certainly there is nothing of which the Japanese stood, and still stand, 
 more in need, than some contrivance for extinguishing fires. Ca^on, in his 
 memorial addressed to Colbert, had recommended a present of ire-extin- 
 guishers. 
 
 t See p. 204. 
 
JOURNEY TO COURT. 279 
 
 company into eminent danger, and the voyage having been often, 
 by reason of the contrary winds, too long and tedious, the emperor 
 has ordered that for the future we should go by land. The pres- 
 ents for the imperial court, and other heavy baggage, being sent 
 before us, the rest of the time till our departure is spent in prepar- 
 ations for our journey, as if we designed some great expedition into 
 a remote part of the world. 
 
 " The first and most essential part consists in nominating, and 
 giving proper instructions to, the several officers, and the whole 
 retinue that is to go with us to court. The governors appoint one 
 of their Joriki to be Bugio, that is, head and commander in chief. 
 He is to represent the authority of his masters, as a badge whereof 
 he hath a pike carried after him. A Dosiu is ordered to assist him 
 in quality of his deputy. Both the Joriki and Dosiu are taken 
 from among the domestics of one of the governors, who stays that 
 year at Nagasaki. To these are added two beadles, who, as well as 
 the Dosiu, carry, by virtue of their office, a halter about them, to 
 arrest and secure, at command or wink from the Joriki, any person 
 guilty or suspected of any misdemeanor. All these persons are 
 looked upon a*s military men, and as such have the privilege of 
 wearing two swords ; — all persons that are not either noblemen by 
 birth, or in some military employment, being by a 'late imperial 
 edict denied this privilege. 
 
 " I have already stated that our interpreters are divided into two 
 companies, the upper consisting of the eight chief interpreters, and 
 the inferior including all the rest. The Ninban, or president for 
 the time being, of each of these companies is appointed to attend 
 us in this journey. To these is now added a third, as an appren- 
 tice, whom they take along with them to qualify him for the succes- 
 sion. All the chief officers, and all other persons that are able to 
 do it, take some servants along with them, partly to wait upon 
 them, partly for state. The Bugio and the principal interpreter 
 take as many as they please, the other officers each two or three, as 
 they are able, or as their office requires. The Dutch captain, or 
 ambassador, may take three, and every Dutchman of his retinue is 
 allowed one. The interpreters commonly recommend their favorites 
 to us, and the more ignorant they are of the Dutch language, the 
 better it answers their intention. • 
 
280 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G90-1692. 
 
 " I omit to mention some other persons, who, by order or by spe- 
 cial leave of the governors and interpreters, make the journey in 
 company with us, and at our expense, too, though otherwise they 
 have no manner of business upon our account. 
 
 " All these future companions of our voyage have leave to make 
 us some friendly visits at Desima, in order to get beforehand a 
 little acquainted with us. There are many among them who would 
 willingly be more free and open, were it not for the solemn oath 
 they must all take before their departure, but much more for the 
 fear of being betrayed by others, since, by virtue of the same oath, 
 they are obliged all and every one of them to have a strict and 
 watchful eye, not only over the Dutch, but also over the conduct of 
 each other, particularly with regard to the Dutch. m 
 
 " Another branch of preparations for our journey is the hiring 
 of horses and porters. This is the chief interpreter's business, as 
 keeper of our purse, who is also appointed to take care that what- 
 ever is wanted during the whole journey be provided for. 'T is he, 
 likewise, that gives orders to keep everything in readiness to march 
 the minute the Bugio is pleased to set out. 
 
 " Two days before our departure every one must deliver his 
 cloak, bag and porimantle, to proper people, to be bound up; — this 
 not after our European manner, but after a particular one of their 
 own, which deserves to be here described. 
 
 "A plain wooden saddle, not unlike the pack-saddles of the 
 Swedish post-horses, is girded on the horse with a breast-leather 
 and crupper. Two latchets are laid upon the saddle, which hang 
 down on both sides of the horse, in order to their being conveniently 
 tied about two portmantles, which are put on each side in a due 
 balance ; for when once tied together, they are barely laid on the 
 horse's back, without any other thong or latchet to tie them faster. 
 However, to fasten them in some measure, a small, long box, or 
 trunk, called by the Japanese Adofski, is laid over both portmantles 
 upon the horse's back, and tied fast to the saddle with thongs ; aid 
 over the whole is spread the traveller's covering and bedding, whkh 
 are tied fast to the Adofski and side trunks. The cavity between 
 the two trunks, filled up with some soft stuff, is the traveller's seat, 
 where he sits, as it were, upon a flat table, commodiously enough, 
 either cross-legged or with his legs extended hanging down by the 
 
JOURNEY TO COURT. 28i 
 
 horse's neck, as he finds it most convenient. Particular care must 
 be taken to sit in the middle, and not to lean too much on either 
 side, which would either" make the horse fall, or else the side trunks 
 and rider. In going up and down hills the footmen and stable 
 grooms hold the two side trunks fast, for fear of such an accident. 
 The traveller mounts the horse, and alights again, not on one side, 
 as we Europeans do, but by the horse's breast, which is very trouble- 
 some for stiff legs. The horses are unsaddled and unladen in an 
 instant ; for having taken the bed-clothes away, which they do 
 first of all, they need but untie a latchet or two, which they are 
 very dexterous at, and the whole baggage falls down at once. The 
 latchets, thongs and girths, made use of for these several purposes, 
 are broad % and strong, made of cotton, and withal very neatly 
 worked, with small, oblong, cylindrical pieces of wood at both 
 ends, which are of great use to strain the latchets, and to tie 
 things hard. 
 
 " The saddle is made of wood, very plain, with a cushion under- 
 neath and a caparison behind, lying upon the horse's back, with 
 the traveller's mark, or arms, stitched upon it. Another piece of 
 coarse cloth hangs* down on each side as a safeguard to the horse, 
 to keep him from being daubed with dirt. These two pieces are 
 tied together loosely under the horse's belly. His head is covered 
 with a net-work of small but strong strings, to defend it, and par- 
 ticularly the eyes, from flies, which are very troublesome. The 
 neck, breast and other parts, are hung with small bells. 
 
 " The side portmantles, which are filled only with light stuff, and 
 sometimes only with straw, are a sort of square trunk, made of 
 stiff horse leather, mostly four feet long, a foot and a half broad, 
 and as many deep. The cover is made somewhat larger, and so 
 deep as to cover the lower part down to the bottom. Though they 
 hold out rain very well, yet, for a greater security, they are wrapt 
 up in mats, with strong ropes tied about them ; for which reason, 
 and because it requires some time to pack them up, they are seldom 
 unpacked till you are come to the journey's end, and the things 
 which are the most wanted upon the road are kept in the Adofski. 
 This is a small, thin trunk or case, about four feet and a half in 
 length, nine inches broad, and as many deep. It contains one 
 single drawer, much of the same length, breadth and depth. Il 
 2-1* 
 
282 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690 -16J2. 
 
 hath a little door or opening on one side, which can be locked up, 
 and by which you can come conveniently at the drawer, without- 
 untying the Adofski. What things are daily wanted upon the 
 road must be kept in this trunk. It serves likewise to fasten the 
 two portmantles, or side trunks, which would otherwise require a 
 stick. It is made of thick, strong, gray paper, and, further to 
 secure it against all accidents of a long journey, strings are tied 
 about it in form of a net, very neatly. 
 
 "To complete our traveller's equipage, some other things are 
 requisite, which are commonly tied to the portmantles. Such are, 
 
 1. A string with Seni, a brass money with a hole in the middle, 
 they being more proper to buy what necessaries are wanted on the 
 road than silver money, which must be weighed. People»that travel 
 on horseback tie this string behind them to one of the sashes of 
 their seats. Foot travellers carry it in a basket upon their back * 
 
 2. A lantern, of varnished and folded paper, with the possessor's 
 arms painted upon its middle. This is carried before travellers by 
 their footmen, upon their shoulder, in travelling by night. It is tied 
 behind one of the portmantles, put up in a net or bag, which again 
 hath the possessor's arms, or marks, printed upon it, as have, in gen- 
 eral the clothes and all other movables travellers of all ranks and 
 qualities carry along with them upon their journeys. 3. A brush 
 made of horse's hairs, or black cock feathers, to dust your seat and 
 clothes. It is put behind your seat, on one side, more for show 
 than use. 4. A water-pail, which is put on the other side of the 
 seat, opposite to the brush, or anywhere else. 5. Shoes, or slippers, 
 for horses and footmen. These are twisted of straw, with ropes 
 likewise of straw, hanging down from them, whereby they are tied 
 about the horse's feet, instead of our European iron horse-shoes, 
 which a*e not used in this country. They are soon worn out in 
 stony, slippery roads, and must be often changed for new ones. 
 For this purpose, the men that look after the horses always carry 
 a competent stock along with them, tied to the portmanteaus, though 
 
 * These seni were of various values, a thousand of them being worth, ac- 
 cording to Caron, from eight to twenty-six mas, that is, from a dollar to 
 three dollars and a quarter; the seni varying, therefore, from a mill to three 
 mills and a quarter. Of the existing copper coinage we shall speak 
 hereafter. See p. 531. 
 
LOVE OF BOTANY. 283 
 
 they are to be met with in every village, and are offered for sale by 
 poor children begging along the road. 
 
 " I must beg leave to observe that, besides the several things 
 hitherto mentioned, which travellers usually carry along with them 
 in their journeys, I had for my own private use a very large Javan 
 box, which I had brought with me from Batavia. In this box I 
 privately kept a large mariner's compass, in order to measure the 
 directions of the roads, mountains and coasts ; but open and exposed 
 to everybody's view, was an ink-horn ; and I usually filled it with 
 plants, flowers, and branches of trees, which I figured and described 
 (nay, under this pretext whatever occurred to me remarkable). Doing 
 this, as I did it free and unhindered, to everybody's knowledge, I 
 should be wrongly accused to have done anything which might 
 have proved disadvantageous to the Company's trade in this coun- 
 try, or to have thereby thrown any ill suspicion upon our conduct 
 from so jealous and circumspect a nation. Nay, far from it, I 
 must own .that, from the very first day of our setting out, till our 
 return to Nagasaki, all the Japanese companions of our journey, 
 and particularly the Bugio, or commander-in-chief, were extremely 
 forward to communicate to me what uncommon plants they met 
 with, together with their names, characters and uses, which they 
 diligently inquired into among the natives. The Japanese, a very 
 reasonable and sensible people, and themselves great lovers of 
 plants, look upon botany as a study both useful and innocent, 
 which, pursuant to the very dictates of reason and the law of 
 nature, ought to be encouraged by everybody. Thus much I know, 
 by my own experience, that of all the nations I saw and conversed 
 with in my long and tedious travels, those the least favored botani- 
 cal learning who ought to have encouraged it most. Upon my return 
 to Nagasaki, Tounemon, secretary and chief counsellor to the gov- 
 ernors, being at Desima, sent for me, and made me, by the chief 
 interpreter, the following compliment : That he had heard with • 
 great pleasure from our late Bugio, how agreeably I had spent my 
 time, and what diversion I had taken upon our journey in that 
 excellent and most commendable study of botany, whereof he, Toune- 
 mon, himself was a great lover and encourager. But I must con- 
 fess, likewise, that at the beginning of our journey I took what 
 pains and tried what means I could to procure the friendship and 
 
284 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690-1692. 
 
 * i 
 
 assistance of my fellow-travellers, obliging some with a submissive 
 humble conduct and ready assistance, as to physic and physical 
 advice, others with secret rewards for the very meanest services and 
 favors. 
 
 " A traveller must not forget to provide himself with ' a cloak, 
 against rainy weather, made of double-varnished oiled paper, and 
 withal so very large and wide that it covers and shelters at once 
 man, horse and baggage. It seems the Japanese have learned the 
 use of it, together with the name Kappa, from the Portuguese. 
 
 "To keep off the heat of the sun travellers must be provided 
 with a large hat, which is made of split bamboos or straw, very 
 neatly and artfully twisted, in form of an extended sombrero, or 
 umbrella. It is tied under the chin with broad silk bands, lined 
 with cotton. It is transparent and exceedingly light, and yet, if 
 once wet, will let no rain come through. Not only the men wear 
 such hats upon their journeys, but also the women in cities and 
 villages, at all times, and in all weathers, and it gives them no dis- 
 agreeable look. 
 
 " The Japanese upon their journeys wear very wide breeches, 
 tapering towards the end, to cover the legs, and slit on both sides 
 to put in the ends of their large, long gowns, which would otherwise 
 be troublesome in walking or riding. Some wear a short coat or 
 cloak over the breech*es. Some, instead of stockings, tie a broad 
 ribbon around their legs. Ordinary servants, chiefly Norimon-men 
 and pike-bearers, wear no breeches, and, for expedition's sake, tuck 
 their gowns quite up to their belt, exposing their naked bodies, 
 which they say they have no reason at all to be ashamed of. 
 
 " The Japanese of both sexes never go abroad without fans, as 
 we Europeans seldom do without gloves.* Upon their journeys 
 
 * " Though it may sound extraordinary to talk of a soldier with a fan, yet 
 the use of that article is so general in Japan that no respectable man is to be 
 seen without one. These fans are a foot long, and sometimes serve for para- 
 sols ; at others instead of memorandum books. They are adorned with 
 paintings of landscapes, birds, flowers, or ingenious sentences. The etiquette 
 to be observed in regard to the fan requires profound study and close atten- 
 tion." — Titsingh. " At feasts and ceremonies the fan is always stuck in tha 
 girdle, on the left hand, behind the sabre, with the handle downward." •-« 
 Thunbzrg. 
 
HORSEMANSHIP. 286 
 
 they make uso of a fan which hath the roads printed upon it, and 
 tells them hov many miles they are to travel, what inns they are 
 to go to, and what price victuals are at. Some, instead of such a 
 fan, make use of a road-book, which are offered them for sale by 
 numbers of poor children, begging along the road. The Dutch are 
 not permitted, at least publicly, to buy any of these fans, or road 
 books. 
 
 " A Japanese on horseback, tucked up -after this fashion, makes 
 a very comical figure at a distance; for, besides that they are 
 generally short and thick, their large hat, wide breeches and cloaks, 
 together with their sitting cross-legged, make them appear broader 
 than long. Upon the road they ride one by one. Merchants have 
 their horses, with the heavy baggage packed up in two or three 
 trunks or bales, led before them. They follow, sitting on horseback, 
 after the manner above described. As to the bridle, the traveller 
 hath nothing to do with that, the horse being led by one of his foot- 
 men, who walks at the horse's right side, next by the head, and 
 together with his companions sings some merry song or other, to 
 divert themselves, and to animate their horses. 
 
 " The Japanese look upon our European way of sitting on horse- 
 back, and holding the bridle one's self, as warlike and properly 
 becoming a soldier. For this very reason they seldom or never use 
 it in their journeys. It is more frequent among people of quality 
 in cities, where they go a visiting one another. But even then the 
 rider (who makes but a sorry appearance when sitting after our 
 manner) holds the bridle merely for form, the horse being still led 
 by one, and sometimes by two, footmen, Who walk on each side of 
 the head, holding it by the bit. Their saddles come nearer our Ger- 
 man saddles than those of any Asiatic nation. The stirrup-leath- 
 ers are very short. A broad round leather hangs down on both 
 sides, after the fashion of the Tartars, to defend the legs. The stir- 
 rup is made of iron, or Sowaas, very thick and heavy, — not unlike 
 the sole of a foot, and open on one side, for the rider to get his 
 foot loose with ease, in case of a fall, — commonly of an exceeding 
 neat workmanship, and inlaid with silver. The reins are not of 
 leather, as ours, but of silk, and fastened to the bit. 
 
 " Besides going on horseback, there is another more stately and 
 expensive way of travelling in this country, and that is to be car- 
 
286 - JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 ried in Norimons and Kangos, or particular sorts of chairs or litters 
 The same is usual likewise in cities. People of quality are carried 
 about after this manner for state, others for ease and convenience. 
 There is a wide difference between the litters men of quality go in, 
 and those of ordinary people. The former are sumptuous and mag- 
 nificent, according to every one's rank and riches. The latter are 
 plain and simple. The former are commonly called Norimons, the 
 latter Kangos. The vulgar (in all nations master of the language) 
 have called them by two different names, though, in fact, they are 
 but one thing. Norimon signifies, properly speaking, a thing to sit 
 in ; Kango, a basket. Both sorts rise through such a variety of 
 degrees, from the lowest to the highest, from the plainest to the 
 most curious, that a fine Kango is scarce to be distinguished from a 
 plain and simple Norimon, but by its pole. The pole of a Kango 
 is plain, massy, all of one piece, and smaller than that of a Nori- 
 mon, which is large, curiously adorned and hollow. The pole of a 
 Norimon is made up of four thin boards, neatly joined together, in 
 form of a wide arch, and much lighter than it appears to be. 
 Princes and great lords show their rank and nobility, amongst 
 other things, particularly by the length and largeness of the poles 
 of'their Norimons. People who fancy themselves to be of greater 
 quality than they really are, are apt now and then to get the poles 
 of their Norimons or Kangos much larger than they ought to have 
 been. But then, also, they are liable to be obliged by the magis- 
 trates, if they come to know of it, to reduce them to their former 
 size, with a severe reprimand, if not a considerable punishment, 
 into the bargain. This regulation, however, doth not concern the 
 women, for they may, if they please, make use of larger poles 
 than their own and their husbands' quality would entitle them to. 
 The Norimon itself is a small room, of an oblong square figure, big 
 enough for one person conveniently to sit or lie in, curiously woven 
 of fine, thin, split bamboos, sometimes japanned and finely painted, 
 with a small folding-door on each side, sometimes a small window 
 before and behind. Sometimes it is fitted up for the conveniency 
 of sleeping in it. It has at top a roof, which in rainy weather has 
 a covering of varnished pa] er. It is carried by two, four, eight or 
 more men, according to the quality of the person in it, who (if he 
 be a prince or Jord of a province) carry the pole on the palms of 
 
COMMONS AND KANGOS. 287 
 
 their hands ; otherwise, they lay it upon their shoulders. All these 
 Norimon-men are clad in the same livery, with the coat of arms or 
 mark of their masters. They are every now and then relieved by 
 others, who in the mean time walk by the Norimon's side. 
 
 "The Kangos are not near so fine nor so well attended. They are 
 much of the same figure, but smaller, with a solid, square, or some- 
 times a round, pole, which is either fastened to the upper part of 
 the roof, or put through it underneath. The Kangos commonly 
 made use of for travelling, chiefly for carrying people over moun- 
 tains, are very poor and plain, and so small, ^hat one cannot 
 sit in them without very great inconveniency, bowing the head 
 and laying the legs across. They are not unlike a basket with a 
 round bottom, and a flat roof, which one reaches with his head. In 
 such Kangos we are carried over the rocks and mountains, which 
 are not easily to be passed on horseback. Three men are appointed 
 for every Kango, who, indeed, for the heaviness of their burden, have 
 enough to do." 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 HIGHWAYS. RIVERS. FORDS. — FERRIES. BRIDGES. — WATER PART OF THE 
 
 JOURNEY. — COAST AND ISLANDS. FRAIL STRUCTURE OF JAPANESE VES- 
 SELS. DESCRIPTION OF THEM. BUILDINGS ON THE ROUTE. DWELLING- 
 HOUSES. CASTLES. TOWNS. VILLAGES. COTTAGES. PROCLAMATION 
 
 PLACES. PLACES OF EXECUTION. TIRAS OR BUDDHIST TEMPLES. — MIAS 
 
 OR 'SINTO TEMPLES. — IDOLS AND AMULETS. 
 
 "The empire of Japan," says Kampfer, "is divided into seven 
 great tracts,* every one of which is bounded by a highway, and, as 
 these tracts are subdivided into provinces, so there are particular 
 ways leading to and from every one of these provinces, all ending 
 in the great highways, as small rivers lose themselves in great ones. 
 These highways are so broad that two companies, though never 
 so great, can, without hindrance, pass by one another. That com- 
 pany, which, according to their way of speaking, goes up, that is, 
 to Miako, takes the left side of the way, and that which comes from 
 Miako the right. All the highways are divided into measured 
 miles, which are all marked, and begin from the great bridge at 
 Jedo as the common centre. This bridge is by way of preeminence, 
 called Niponbas, that is, the bridge of Japan. By this means, a 
 traveller, in whatever part of the empire he be, may know at any 
 time how many Japanese miles it is from thence to Jedo. The 
 miles are marked by two small hills thrown up, one on each side of 
 the way, opposite each other, and planted at the top with one or 
 more trees. At the end of every tract, province, or smaller district, 
 a wooden or stone pillar is set up in the highway, with characters . 
 upon it, showing what provinces or lands they are which here 
 bound upon each other, and to whom they belong. Like pillars are 
 erected at the entry of the side-ways which turn off from the great 
 
 * This is exclusive of the central tract or imperial domain (consisting of 
 five provinces), and also of the two island provinces of Iki and Tsu-sima. 
 
HIGHWAYS. 289 
 
 highway, showing what province or dominion they lead to, and the 
 distance in leagues to the next remarkable place. The natives, as 
 they improve every inch of ground, plant firs and cypress trees in 
 rows along the roads over the ridges of hills, mountains and other 
 barren places. No firs or cypress can be cut down without leave of 
 the magistrate of the place, and they must always plant young one? 
 instead of those they cut down. 
 
 " In our journey to court we pass along two of these chief high- 
 ways, and go by water from one to the other, so that our whole 
 journey is divided into three parts. We set out from Nagasaki to 
 go by land across the island Krusiu, to the town of Kokura, where 
 we arrive in five days. From Kokura we pass the straits in small 
 boats to Simonoseki, a convenient and secure harbor, about two 
 leagues off, where we find our barge, with the baggage, riding at 
 anchor and waiting our arrival. The road from Nagasaki to 
 Kokura is called by the Japanese Saikaido, that is, the west 
 sea way.* At Simonoseki we go on board our barge for Fiogo, 
 where we arrive in eight days, more or less, according to the wind. 
 Osaka, a city very famous for the extent of its commerce and the 
 wealth of its inhabitants, lies about thirteen Japanese water-leagues 
 from Fiogo, which, on account of the shallowness of the water, we 
 make in small boats, leaving our large barge at Fiogo till our return. 
 From Osaka we go again by land, over the great island Nipon, as 
 far as Jedo, the emperor's residence, where we arrive in about four- 
 teen days or more. The road from Osaka to Jedo is by the Japan- 
 ese called Takaido, that is, the east sea or coast way. We stay at 
 Jedo about twenty days, or upwards ; and having had an audience 
 of his imperial majesty, and paid our respects to some of his chief 
 ministers and favorites, we return to Nagasaki the same way, com- 
 pleting our whole journey in about three months' time.t 
 
 * For a part of the distance across Siusiu (or Ximo), different routes were 
 taken in the first and second of Kampfer's journeys. In the first he crossed 
 the gulf of Omura; in the second, the gulf of Simabara, these two gulfs en- 
 closing the peninsula of Omura, the one on the north, the other on the east 
 
 t The distance is reckoned by the Japanese at three hundred and thirty 
 
 two to three hundred and thirty-three leagues ; but these Japanese leagues 
 
 are of unequal length, varying from eighteen thousand to about thirteen 
 
 thousand feet, and the water-leagues generally shorter than those by land, 
 
 25 
 
290 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690— 1G92. 
 
 " In most parts of Saikaido, and everywhere upon Tokaido, 
 between the towns and villages, there is a straight row of firs 
 planted on each side of the road, which by their agreeable shade 
 make the journey both pleasant and convenient. The ground is 
 kept clean and neat, convenient ditches and outlets are contrived to 
 carry off»the rain-water, and strong dikes are cast up to keep off 
 that which comes down from higher places. This makes the road 
 at all times good and pleasant, unless it be then raining and the 
 ground slimy. The neighboring villages must jointly keep them in 
 repair, and sweep and clean them every day. People of great 
 quality cause the road to be swept with brooms, just before they 
 pass it; and there lie heaps of sand in readiness, at due distances 
 (brought thither some days before), to spread over the road, in order 
 to dry it, in case it should rain upon their arrival. The lords of 
 the several provinces, and the princes of the imperial blood, in their 
 journeys, find, at every two or three leagues' distance, huts of green- 
 leaved branches erected for them, with a private apartment, where 
 i-.hey may step in for their pleasures or necessities. The inspectors 
 for repairing the highway are at no great trouble to get people to 
 clean them, for whatever makes the roads nasty is of some use to 
 the neighboring country people, so that they rather strive who shall 
 first carry it away. The pine-nuts, branches and leaves, which fall 
 down daily from the firs, are gathered for fuel to supply the want 
 of wood, which is very scarce in some places. Nor doth horses' 
 dung lie long upon the ground, but is soon taken up by poor coun- 
 try children, and serves to manure the fields. For the same reason 
 care is taken that the filth of travellers be not lost, and there are in 
 several places, near country people's houses, or in their fields, 
 houses of office built for them. Old shoes of horses and men, 
 which are thrown away as useless, are gathered in the same houses, 
 burnt to ashes, and added to the mixture. Supplies of this com- 
 position are kept in large tubs or tuns, buried even with the ground 
 in their villages and fields, and, being not covered, afford full as 
 ungrateful and putrid a smell of radishes (which is the common 
 food of country people) to tender noses, as the neatness and beauty 
 of the road is agreeable to the eyes. 
 
 in the proportion of five to three. Kampfer makes the whole distance two 
 hundred German or about eight hundred English miles. 
 
RIVERS. 29l 
 
 J In several parts of the country the roads go over hills and 
 mountains, which are sometimes so steep and high, that travellers 
 are necessitated to get themselves carried over them hvkangos, 
 such as I have described in the preceding chapter, because they 
 cannot, without great difficulty and danger, pass them on horseback. 
 But even this part of the road, which may be called bad in com- 
 parison to others, is green and pleasant, for the abundance of springs 
 of clear water, and green bushes, and this all the year round, but 
 particularly in the spring, when the flower-bearing trees and shrubs 
 being then in their full blossom, prove an additional beauty, afford- 
 ing to the eye a curious view, and filling the nose with agreeable 
 scent. 
 
 " Several of the rivers we are to cross over, chiefly upon Tokai- 
 do, run with so impetuous a rapidity towards the sea, that they 
 will bear no bridge nor boat, and this by reason partly of the 
 neighboring ' snow-mountains, where they arise, partly of the 
 frequent great rains, which swell them to such a degree as to make 
 them overflow their banks. These must be forded. Men*, horses 
 •and baggage, are delivered up to the care of certain people, bred up 
 to this business, who are well acquainted with the bed of the river, 
 and the places which are the most proper for fording. These 
 people, as they are made answerable for their passengers' lives, and 
 all accidents that might befall them in the passage, exert all their 
 strength, care and dexterity, to support them with their arms against 
 the impetuosity of the river, and the stones rolling down from the 
 mountains where the rivers arise. Norimons are carried over by 
 the same people. 
 
 " The chief of these rivers is the formidable Gringaiva, which sep- 
 arates the two provinces Tutomi and Suruga. The passage of 
 this river is what all travellers are apprehensive of, not only for its 
 uncommon rapidity and swiftness, but because sometimes, chiefly 
 after rains, it swells so high, that they are necessitated to stay sev- 
 eral days on either bank, till the fall of the water makes it passable, 
 or till they will venture the passage, and desire to be set over at 
 their own peril. The rivers Fusi-Jedagawa and Abigawa, in the 
 last mentioned province, are of the like nature, but not so much 
 dreaded. 
 
 "There are many other shallow and rapid rivers, but because 
 
292 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 they are not near so broad nor impetuous as those above mentioned 
 passengers are ferried over them in boats, which are built after a 
 particular fashion proper for such a passage, with flat, thin bottoms, 
 which will give way, so that if they run aground, or upon some 
 great stone, they may easily, and without any danger slide over it 
 and get off again. The chief of these are the river Tensiu, in the 
 province Tutomi ; Fusigawa, in the province Seiiuga ; Benriu, 
 in the province Musasi, and Askagawa, which is particularly 
 remarkable, for that its bed continually alters, for which reason 
 inconstant people are compared to it in proverb. 
 
 " Strong, broad bridges are laid over all other rivers which do 
 not run with so much rapidity, nor alter their beds. These bridges 
 are built of cedar, and kept in constant repair, so that they look at 
 all times as if they had been but lately finished. They are railed 
 on both sides. As one may travel all over Japan without paying 
 any taxes or customs, so likewise they know nothing of any money 
 to be paid by way of a toll for the repair of highways and bridges. 
 Only in some places the custom is, in winter-time, to give the 
 bridge-keeper, who is to look after the bridge, a seni for his 
 trouble. 
 
 " That part of our journey to court made by water is along the 
 coasts of the great island Nipon, which we have on our left, steering 
 our course so as to continue always in sight of land, and not above 
 one or two leagues off it at farthest, that in case of a storm arising 
 it may be in our power forthwith to put into some harbor. Coming 
 out of the straits of Simonoseki, we continue for some time in sight 
 of the south-eastern coasts of Kiusiu. Having left these coasts, we 
 come in sight of those of the island Sikokf. We then make the 
 island Awadsi, and, steering between this island and the main land 
 of the province Idsumi, we put into the harbor of Osaka, and so 
 end that part of our journey to court which must be made by sea. 
 All these coasts are very much frequented, not only by the princes 
 and lords of the empire, with their retinues, travelling to and from 
 court, but likewise by the merchants of the country, going from one 
 province to another to buy and sell, so that one may chance on 
 some days to see upwards of a hundred ships under sail. The 
 coasts hereabouts are rocky and mountainous ; but many of the 
 mountain are cultivated to their very tops ; they are well inhab* 
 
COASTING VOYAGE. 295 
 
 ited and stocked with villages, castles and small towns. There are 
 very good harbors in several places, where ships put in at night to 
 lie at anchor, commonly upon good clean ground, in four to eight 
 fathoms. 
 
 " In this voyage we pass innumerable small islands, particularly 
 in the straits between Sikokf and Nipon. They are all mountain- 
 ous, and for the most part barren and uncultivated rocks. Some 
 few have a tolerable good soil and sweet water. These are inhab- 
 ited, and the mountains, though never so steep, cultivated up to 
 their tops. These mountains (as also those of the main land of 
 Nipon) have several rows of firs planted for ornament's sake along 
 their ridges at top, which makes them look at a distance as if they 
 were fringed, and affords a very curious prospect. There is hardly 
 an island^ of the inhabited ones, but what hath a convenient har 
 bor, with good anchoring ground, where ships may lie safe. All 
 ■Japanese pilots know this very well, and will sometimes come to an 
 anchor upon very slight pretences. Nor, indeed, are they much to 
 be blamed for an over-carefulness, or too great a circumspection, 
 which some would be apt to call fear and cowardice. Their ships 
 are not built strong enough to bear the shocks and tossings of huge 
 raging waves. The deck is so loose that it will let the water 
 run through, unless the mast hath been taken down and the ship 
 covered, partly with mats, partly with sails. The stern is laid quite 
 open, and, if the sea runs high, the waves will beat in on all sides. 
 In short, the whole structure is so weak that, a storm approaching, 
 unless anchor be forthwith cast, the sails taken in, and the mast let 
 down, it is in danger every moment to be shattered to pieces. 
 
 " All the ships and boats we met with on our voyage by sea were 
 built of fir or cedar, both which grow in greaf plenty in the coun- 
 try. They are of a different structure, according to the purposes 
 and the waters for which they are built. The pleasure-boats, made 
 use of only for going up and clown rivers, or to cross small bays, 
 are widely different in their structure, according to the possessor'*! 
 fancy. Commonly they are built for rowing. The first and lower- 
 most deck is flat and low ; another, more lofty, with open windows, 
 stands upon it, and this may be divided, like their houses, by fold- 
 ing screens, as they please, into several apartments. Several parts 
 are curiously adorned with variety of flags and other ornaments. 
 25* 
 
294 JAPAN. A. D. 1690—1092. 
 
 " The merchant-ships which venture out at sea, though not very 
 far from the coasts, and serve for the transport of men and goods 
 from one island or province to another, deserve a more accurate 
 description. They are commonly eighty-four feet long and 
 twenty-four broad, built for sailing as well as rowing. They 
 run - tapering from the middle towards the stern, and both ends 
 of the ke.el stand out of the water considerably. The body of 
 the ship is not built bulging, as our European ones; but that 
 part which stands below the surface of the water runs almost in a 
 straight line towards the keel. The stern is broad and flat, with a 
 wide opening in the middle for the easier management of the rud- 
 der, which reaches down almost to the bottom of the ship, and lays 
 open all the inside to the eye. The deck, somewhat raised towards 
 the stern, consists only of deal boards laid loose, without anything 
 to fasten them together. It rises but little above the surface of the 
 water, when the ship hath its full lading, and is almost covered 
 with a sort of a cabin, full a man's height, only a small part of it 
 towards the stern being left empty to lay up the anchor and other 
 tackle. This cabin jets beyond the ship about two feet on each 
 side ; and there are sliding-windows round it, which may be opened 
 or shut, as occasion requires. In the furthermost parts are the cab- 
 ins, or rooms for passengers, separate from each other by folding 
 screens and doors, with floors covered with fine neat mats. The 
 furthermost cabin is always reckoned the best, and for this reason 
 assigned to the chief passenger. The roof, or upper deck, is flat- 
 tish, and made of neat boards curiously joined together. In rainy 
 weather the mast is let down upon the upper deck, and the sail 
 extended over it, affording to the sailors and the people employed 
 in the ship's service shelter and a place to sleep at night. Some- 
 times, and the better to defend the upper deck, it is covered with 
 common .straw mats, which for this purpose lie there at hand. The 
 ship hath but one sail, made of hemp, and very large. She hath 
 also but one mast, standing up about a fathom beyond her middle 
 towards the stern. This mast, which is of the same length with the 
 ship, is hoisted up by pulleys, and again, when the ship comes to an 
 anchor, let down upon deck. The anchors are of iron, and cables 
 twisted of straw, and stronger than one would imagine. Ships of 
 this burden have commonly thirty or forty hands apiece to row 
 
.BUILDINGS. 2£- 
 
 them, if tlie wind fliils. Tlie watermen's benches are towards t' 
 stern. They row according to the air of a song, or other nois ■ 
 which serves at the same time to direct and regulate their wor-. 
 and to encourage the rowers. They do not row after our European 
 manner, extending their oars straight forwards, and cutting just 
 the surface of the water, but let them fall down into the water 
 almost perpendicularly, and then lift them up again. This way of 
 rowing not only answers all the ends of the other, but is done with 
 less trouble. The benches of the rowers are raised considerably 
 above the surface of the water. Their oars are, besides, made in a 
 particular manner, calculated for this way of rowing, being not 
 straight like our European oars, but somewhat bent, with a mova- 
 ble joint in the middle, which, yielding to the violent pressure of the 
 water, facilitates the taking them up. The ship's timbers and planks 
 are fastened together with hooks* and bands of copper. The stern 
 is adorned with a knot of fringes made of thin, long, black strings. 
 Men of quality in their voyages have their cabin hung all about 
 with cloth, whereupon is stitched their coats of arms. Their pike 
 of state, as the badge of their authority, is put up upon the stern 
 on one side of the rudder. On the other side there is a weather- 
 flag for the use of the pilot. In small ships, as soon as they come 
 to an anchor, the rudder is hoisted up, and one end of it extended 
 to the shore, so that one may pass through the opening of the stern, 
 as through a back door, and walking over the rudder, as over a 
 bridge, get ashore. Thus much of the ships. I proceed now to 
 other structures and buildings travellers meet with in their journeys 
 by land. 
 
 " It may be observed, in general, that the buildings of this coun- 
 try, ecclesiastical' or civil, public or private, being commonly 
 low and of wood, are by no means to be compared to ours in 
 Europe, neither in largeness nor magnificence. The houses of pri- 
 vate persons never exceed six kins, or thirty-six feet in height. 
 Nay, 't is but seldom they build their houses so high, unless they 
 design them also for warehouses. Even the palaces of the Dairi, 
 the secular monarch, and of the princes and lords, are not \bove 
 one story high. And although there be many common houses, 
 chiefly in towns, of two stories, yet the upper story, if it deserves 
 that name, is generally very low, unfit to be inhabited, and good foi 
 
296 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690— 1G92. 
 
 little else but to lay up some of the least necessary household goods, 
 it being often without a ceiling or any other cover but the bare roof. 
 The reason of their building their houses so low, is the frequency 
 of earthquakes, which prove much more fatal to lofty and massy 
 buildings of stone, than to low and small houses of wood. But if 
 the houses of the Japanese be not so large, lofty, or so substantially 
 built as ours, they are on the other hand greatly to be admired for 
 their uncommon neatness and cleanliness, and curious furniture. I 
 could not help taking notice that the furniture and the several orna- 
 ments of their apartments make a far more graceful and handsome 
 appearance in rooms of a small compass, than they would do in 
 large, lofty halls. They have none, or but few, partition walls to 
 divide their rooms from each other, but instead of them make use 
 of folding screens, made of colored or gilt paper, and laid into 
 wooden frames, which they can put up or remove whenever they 
 please, and by this means enlarge their rooms or make them nar- 
 rower, as it best suits their fancy or convenience. The floors are 
 somewhat raised above the level of the street, and are all made of 
 boards, neatly covered with fine mats,* the borders whereof are 
 curiously fringed, embroidered, or otherwise neatly adorned. All 
 mats are of the same size in all parts of the empire, to wit, a kin, 
 or six feet long,! and half a kin broad. All the lower part of the 
 house, the staircase leading up to the second story, if there be any, 
 the doors, windows,! posts and passages, are curiously painted and 
 varnished. The ceilings are neatly covered with gilt or silver col- 
 ored paper, embellished with flowers, and the screens in several 
 rooms curiously painted. In short, there is not one corner in the 
 whole house but looks handsome and pretty, and this the rather 
 since all their furniture may be bought at an easy rate. 
 
 " I must not forget to mention, that it is very healthful to live 
 
 * Three or four inches thick (according to Thunberg) , and made of rushes 
 and rice straw. 
 
 t Japanese feet, that is, for, according to Klaproth {Annates des Emp. du 
 Japon), page 404, note, the kin is equal to seven feet four inches and a 
 half, Rhineland (which does not differ much from our English) measure. 
 
 t These windows are of light frames, which may be taken out, and put in, 
 and slid behind each other, at pleasure, divided into parallelograms like our 
 panes of glass, and covered with paper. Glass windows are unluown. 
 
CASTLES. 29T 
 
 in these houses, and that in this particular they are far beyond ours 
 in Europe, because of their being built all of cedar wood, or fir ; 
 and because the windows are generally contrived so that upon 
 opening them, and removing the screens which separate the rooms, 
 a free passage is left for the air through the whole house. 
 
 " I took notice that the roof, which is covered with planks* or 
 shingles of wood, rests upon thick, strong, heavy beams, as large as 
 they can get them, and that the second story is generally built 
 stronger and more substantial than the first. This they do by rea- 
 son of the frequent earthquakes which happen in this country, 
 because, they observe, that in case of a violent shock, the pressure 
 of the upper part of the house upon the lower, which is built much 
 lighter, keeps the whole from being overthrown. 
 
 " The castles of the Japanese nobility are built, either on great 
 rivers, or upon hills, and rising grounds. They take in a vast deal 
 of room, and consist commonly of three different fortresses, or en- 
 closures, which cover and defend, or, if possible, encompass one 
 another. Each enclosure is surrounded and defended by a clean, 
 deep ditch, and a thick, strong wall, built of stone or earth, with 
 strong gates. Guns they have none. The principal and innermost 
 castle or enclosure is called the Foumas, that is, the true or chief 
 castle. It is the residence of the prince or lord who is in posses- 
 sion of it, and as such it is distinguished from the others by a square, 
 large, white tower, three or four stories high, with a small roof 
 encompassing each story like a crown or garland. In the second 
 enclosure, called Ninmas, that is, the second castle, are lodged the 
 gentlemen of the prince's bed-chamber, his stewards, secretaries and 
 other chief officers, who are to give a constant attendance about his 
 person. The empty spaces are cultivated, and turned either into 
 gardens or sown with rice. The third and outwardmost enclosure 
 is called Sotor/amei, that is, the outwardmost defence ; as, also, 
 Nimiomas, that is, the third castle. It is the abode of a numerous • 
 train of soldiers, courtiers, domestics and other people, everybody 
 being permitted to come into it. The white walls, bastions, gates, 
 each of which hath two or more stories built over it, and above all 
 the beautiful tower of the innermost castle, are extremely pleasant 
 
 * Thunberg says, " tiles of a singular make, very thick and heavj.'* 
 
298 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 to behold at a distance. There is commonly a place withoi t the 
 castle designed for a rendezvous and review of troops. Hence it 
 appears, that, considering wars are carried on in this country with- 
 out the use of great guns, these castles are well enough defended, 
 and of sufficient strength to hold out a long siege. The proprietors 
 are bound to take particular care that they be kept in constant 
 repair. IJowever, if there be any part thereof going to ruin, the 
 game cannot be rebuilt without the knowledge and express leave of 
 the emperor. Much less doth the emperor suffer new ones to be 
 built in any part of his dominions. The castles where the princes 
 or lords reside are commonly seated at the extremity of some large 
 town, which encompasses them in the form of a half-moon. # 
 
 "Most of the towns are very populous, and well built. The 
 streets are generally speaking regular, running straight forward, 
 and crossing each other at right angles, as if they had been laid 
 out at one time, and according to one general ground-plot. The 
 towns are not surrounded with walls and ditches. The two chief 
 gates, where people go in and out, are no better than the ordinary 
 gates which stand at the end of every street, and are shut at night. 
 Sometimes there is part of a wall built contiguous to them on 
 each side, merely for ornament's sake. In larger towns, where 
 some prince resides, these two gates are a little handsomer, and 
 kept in better repair, and there is commonly a strong guard 
 mounted, all out of respect for the residing prince. The rest of 
 the town generally lies open to the fields, and is but seldom enclosed 
 even with a common hedge, or ditch. In our journey to court, I 
 counted thirty-three towns and residences of princes of the empire, 
 some whereof we passed through, but saw others only at a distance. 
 Common towns and large villages or boroughs, on our road, I 
 computed at from seventy-seven to eighty or upwards.! 
 
 " I could not help admiring the great number of shops we met 
 
 •with in all the cities, towns and villages ; whole streets being scarce 
 
 anything else but continued rows of shops on both sides, and I own, 
 
 for my part, that I could not well conceive how the whole country 
 
 * In a Japanese map brought home by Kampfer the number of castles in 
 the whole empire is set down at a hundred and forty-six. 
 
 t The whole number of towns in the empire, great and small, is set down 
 in the above mentioned map at more than thirteen thousand. 
 
PROCLAMATION PLACES. 299 
 
 is able to furnish customers enough, only to make the proprietors 
 get a livelihood, much less to enrich them. 
 
 " The villages along the highways in the great island Nipon, 
 have among their inhabitants but few farmers, the far greater part 
 being made up by people who resort there to get their livelihood 
 either by selling some odd things to travellers, or by servile daily 
 labor. Most of these villages consist only of one long street, bor- 
 dering on each side of the highway, which is sometimes extended to 
 such a length as almost to reach the next village. 
 
 " The houses of country people and husbandmen consist of four 
 low walls covered with a thatched or shingled roof. In the back 
 part of the house the floor is somewhat raised above the level of the 
 street, and there it is they place the hearth ; the rest is covered 
 with neat mats. Behind the street door hang rows of coarse 
 ropes made of straw, not to hinder people from coming in or going 
 out, but to serve instead of a lattice-window to prevent such as are 
 without from looking in and observing what passes within doors. 
 As to household goods they have but few. Many children and 
 great poverty is generally what they are possessed of; and yet 
 with some small provision of rice, plants and roots, they live content 
 and happy. 
 
 " Passing through cities and villages and other inhabited places, 
 we always found, upon one of the chief public streets, a small place 
 encompassed with grates, for the supreme will, as the usual way of 
 speaking is in this countiy, that is, for the imperial orders and 
 proclamations. The lord or governor of every province publishes 
 them in his own name for the instruction of passengers. They are 
 written, article by article, in large, fair characters, upon a square 
 table of a foot or two in length, standing upon a post at least twelve 
 feet high. We saw several of these tables, as we travelled along, of 
 different dates and upon different subjects. The chief, largest and 
 oldest, contain the edict against the Roinan Catholic religion, setting 
 forth also proper orders relating to the image-trampling inquisition, 
 and specifying what reward is to be given to any person or persons 
 that discover a Christian or a priest. The lords or governors of prov- 
 inces put up their own orders and edicts in the same place. This 
 is the reason why there are sometimes so many standing behind or 
 near one another, that it is scarce possible *o soe. and to read them 
 
BOO JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 all. Sometimes, also, they have pieces of money, in gold or silver, 
 stuck or nailed to them, to be given as a reward to any one who 
 discovers any fact, person or criminal therein mentioned. These 
 grated proclamation-cases are commonly placed, in great cities, just 
 at the entrance, and in villages and hamlets in the middle of the 
 chief streets, where there is the most passing. Along the road there 
 are some other orders and instructions for passengers, put up in the 
 like manner, but upon lower posts. These come from the sheriffs, 
 surveyors of the roads and other inferior officers, and although the 
 things therein ordered or intimated be generally very trifling, yet 
 they may involve a transgressor or negligent observer in great 
 troubles and expense. 
 
 " Another remarkable thing we met with, as we travelled along, 
 were the places of public execution, easily known by crosses, posts, 
 and other remains of former executions. They commonly lie with- 
 out the cities or villages, on the west side. 
 
 "In this heathen country fewer capital crimes are tried before the 
 courts of justice, and less criminal blood shed by the hands of public 
 executioners, than perhaps in any part of Christendom. So power- 
 fully works the fear of an inevitable, shameful death upon the minds 
 of a nation, otherwise so stubborn as the Japanese, and so regard- 
 less of their lives, that nothing else but such strictness would be 
 able to keep them within due bounds. 'T is true, indeed, Nagasaki 
 cannot boast of that scarcity of executions ; for besides that this 
 place hath been in a manner consecrated to cruelty and blood, by 
 being made the common butchery of many thousand Japanese 
 Christians, there have not been since wanting frequent executions, 
 particularly of those people who, contrary to the severe imperial 
 edict, cannot leave off carrying on a smuggling trade with for- 
 eigners, and who alone perhaps of the whole nation seem to be 
 more pleased with this unlawful gain, than frightened by the shame- 
 ful punishment which they must inevitably suffer if caught in the 
 fact or betrayed to the governors. 
 
 " Of all the religious buildings to be seen in this country, the 
 Tira, that is, the Buddhist temples, with the adjoining convents, 
 are, doubtless, the most remarkable, as being far superior to all 
 others, by their stately height, curious roofs, and numberless other 
 oeautiful ornaments. Such as are built within cities or villages, 
 
TEMPLES. 301 
 
 stand commonly on rising grounds, and in the most conspicuous 
 places. Others, which are without, are built on the ascent of hills 
 and mountains. All are most sweetly seated, — a curious view of 
 the adjacent country, a spring or rivulet of clear water, and the 
 neighborhood of a wood, with pleasant walks, being necessary for 
 the spots on which these holy structures are to be built. 
 
 " All these temples are built of the best cedars and firs, and 
 adorned within with many carved images. In the middle of the 
 temple stands a fine altar, with one or more gilt idols upon it, and 
 a beautiful candlestick, with sweet-scented candles burning before 
 it. The whole temple is so neatly and curiously adorned, that one 
 would fancy himself transported into a Roman Catholic church, 
 did not the monstrous shape of the idols, which are therein wor- 
 shipped, evince the contrary. The whole empire is full of these 
 temples, and their priests are without number. Only in and about 
 Miako they count three thousand eight hundred and ninety-three 
 temples, and thirty-seven thousand and ninety-three Siukku, or 
 priests, to attend them. 
 
 " The sanctity of the Mia, or temples sacred to the gods of old 
 worshipped in the country, requires also that they should be built 
 in some lofty place, or, at least, at some distance from unclean, 
 common grounds. I have elsewhere observed that they are at- 
 tended only by secular persons* A neat broad walk turns in from 
 the highway towards these temples. At the beginning of the walk 
 is a stately and magnificent gate, built either of stone or of wood, 
 with a square table, about a foot and a half high, on which the 
 name of the god to whom the temple is consecrated is written or 
 engraved in golden characters. 
 
 " Of this magnificent entry one may justly say, Parturiunt 
 Montes ; for if you come to the end of the walk, which is some- 
 times several hundred paces long, instead of a pompous, magnificent 
 building, you find nothing but a low, mean structure of wood, often 
 all hid amidst trees and bushes, with one single grated window to 
 look into it, and within either all empty, or adorned only with a look- 
 ing-glass of metal, placed in the middle, and hung about with some 
 
 * Kampfer's meaning seems to be only that the Sinto priests were not 
 monks living together in convents, like the Buddhist clergy, but having 
 houses and families of their own. 
 
 20 
 
302 JAPAN. A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 bundles of straw, or cut white paper, tied to a long string, in form 
 of fringes, as a mark of the purity and sanctity of the place. The 
 most magnificent gates stand before the temples of Tensio dai sin, of 
 Fatzman, and of that Kami, or god, whom particular places choose 
 to worship as their tutelar deity, who takes a more particular care 
 to protect and defend them.* 
 
 " Other religious objects travellers meet with along the roads, 
 are the Fotoge, or foreign idols, chiefly those of Amida and Disisoo, 
 as also other monstrous images and idols, which we found upon the 
 highways in several places, at the turning in of sideways, near 
 bridges, convents, temples, and other buildings. They are set up 
 partly as an ornament to the place, partly to remind travellers of 
 the devotion and worship due to the gods. For this same purpose, 
 drawings of these idols* printed upon entire or half sheets of paper, 
 are pasted upon the gates of cities and villages, upon wooden posts, 
 near bridges, upon the proclamation-cases above described, and in 
 several other places upon the highway, which stand the most ex- 
 posed to the traveller's view. Travellers, however, are not obliged 
 to fall down before them, or to pay them any other mark of wor- 
 ship and respect than they are otherwise willing to do. 
 
 " On the doors and houses of ordinary people (for men of quality 
 seldom suffer to have theirs thus disfigured) there is commonly 
 pasted a sorry picture of one of their Lares, or house gods, printed 
 upon a half sheet of paper. The most common is the black-horned 
 Giwon, otherwise called God-su Ten Oo — that is, according to 
 the literal signification of the Chinese characters for this name, 
 the ox-headed prince of heaven — whom they believe to have the 
 power of keeping the family from distempers, and other unlucky 
 
 * According to a memorandum annexed to the Japanese map already 
 mentioned, there were in Japan twenty-seven thousand seven hundred 
 Kami temples, one hundred and twenty-two thousand five hundred and 
 eighty Buddhist temples, in all forty-nine thousand two hundred and eighty. 
 By the census of 1850, there were in the United States thirty-eight thousand 
 one hundred and eighty-three buildings used for religious worship. 
 
 It would appear that though the Sinto temples did not want worshippers 
 who freely contributed alms to the support of the priests, yet that since the 
 abolition of the Catholic worship, and as a sort of security against it, every 
 Japanese was required to enroll himself as belonging to some Buddhist sect 
 or observance. 
 
CHARMS AND AMULETS. 80S 
 
 accidents, particularly from the small-pox, which proves fatal to 
 great numbers of their children. Others fancy they thrive ex- 
 tremely well, and live happy, under the protection of a countryman 
 of Jeso, whose monstrous, frightful picture they paste upon their 
 doors, being hairy all over his body, and carrying a large sword 
 with both hands, which they believe he makes use of to keep off, 
 and, as it were, to parry, all sorts of distempers and misfortunes 
 endeavoring to get into the house. 
 
 " On the fronts of new and pretty houses I have sometimes seen 
 dragons' or devils' heads, painted with a wide open mouth, large 
 teeth and fiery eyes. The Chinese, and other Indian nations — 
 nay, even the Mahomedans in Arabia and Persia — have the same 
 placed over the doors of their houses, by the frightful aspect of this 
 monstrous figure to keep off, as the latter say, the envious from dis- 
 turbing the peace of families. 
 
 " Often, also, they put a branch of the Fanna Skimmi or anise- 
 tree over their doors, which is, in like manner, believed to bring 
 good luck into their houses ; or else liverwort, which they fancy hath 
 the particular virtue to keep off evil spirits ; or some other plants or 
 branches of trees. In villages they often place their indulgence 
 boxes,* which they bring back from their pilgrimage to Isje, over 
 their doors, thinking, also, by this means to bring happiness and 
 prosperity upon their houses. Others paste long strips of paper to 
 their doors, which the adherents of the several religious sects and 
 convents are presented with by their clergy, for some small gratuity. 
 There are odd, unknown characters, and divers forms of prayers, 
 writ upon these papers, which the superstitious firmly believe to 
 have the infallible virtue of conjuring and keeping off all manner* 
 of misfortunes. Many more amulets of the like nature are pasted 
 to their doors, against the plague, distempers, and particular mis- 
 fortunes. There is, also, one against poverty." 
 
 * These offari or indulgence-boxes are little boxes made of thin boards and 
 filled with small sticks wrapped in bits of white paper. Great virtues are 
 ascribed to them, but a new one is necessary every year. They are manu 
 factured and sold by the Sinto priests. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 POST-HOUSES. IMPERIAL MESSENGERS. INNS. HOUSES. — THEIR FURNI ■ 
 
 TURE AND INTERIOR ARRANGEMENTS. BATHING AND SWEATING HOUSE. — 
 
 GARDENS. REFRESHMENT HOUSES. WHAT THEY PROVIDE. TEA. 
 
 " To accommodate travellers, there is, in all the chief villages 
 and hamlets, a post-house, belonging to the lord of the place, where, 
 at all times, they may find horses, porters, footmen, &c, in readi- 
 ness, at certain settled prices. Travellers, of all ranks and qualities, 
 with their retinues, resort to these post-houses, which lie at from 
 six to sixteen English miles distance from each other, but are, gen- 
 erally speaking, not so good nor so well furnished upon Kiusiu as* 
 upon the great island Nipon, where we came to fifty-six in going 
 from Osaka to Jedo. These post-houses are not built for inn-keep- 
 ing, but only for stabling and exchange of horses, for which reason 
 there is a spacious Court belonging to each ; also clerks and book- 
 keepers enough, who keep accounts, in their master's name, of all 
 the daily occurrences. The price of all such things as are to be 
 hired at these post-houses is settled, not only according to distances, 
 but with regard to the goodness or badness of the roads, to the 
 price of victuals, forage, and the like. One post-house with another, 
 a horse to ride on, with two portmantles and an adofski, may be 
 had for eight seni a mile. A horse, which is only saddled, and 
 hath neither men nor baggage to carry, will cost six seni ; porters 
 and kango-men, five seni, and so on. 
 
 " Messengers are waiting, day and night, at all these post-houses, 
 to carry the letters, edicts, proclamations, &c, of the emperor and 
 the princes of the empire, which they take up the moment they are 
 delivered at the post-house, and carry to the next with all speed. 
 They are kept in a small, black varnished box, bearing the coat-of- 
 arms of the emperor or prince who sends them, which the messenger 
 
INNS. 305 
 
 carries upon his shoulder, tied to a small staff. Two of these 
 messengers always run together, that in case any accident should 
 befall either of them upon the road, the other may take his place, 
 and deliver the box at the next post-house. All travellers, even 
 the princes of the empire and their retinues, must retire out of the 
 way and give a free passage to the messengers who carry letters or 
 orders from the emperor, which they take care to signify at a due 
 distance by ringing a small bell. 
 
 " There arc inns enough, and tolerable good ones, all along the 
 road. The best are in those villages where there are post-houses. 
 At these even princes and princely retinues may be conveniently 
 lodged, treated suitably to their rank, and provided with all neces- 
 saries. Like other well-built houses, they are but one story high, 
 or, if there be two stories, the second is low, and good for little else 
 but stowage. The inns are not broader in front than other houses, 
 but considerably deep, sometimes forty kin, or two hundred and 
 forty feet, with a Tsubo — that is, a small pleasure-garden — be- 
 hind, enclosed with a neat white wall. The front hath only lattice 
 windows, which, in the day time, are kept • open. The folding 
 screens and movable partitions which divide the several apart- 
 ments, unless there be some man of quality with his retinue at that 
 time lodged there, are also so disposed as to lay open to travellers, 
 as they go along, a very agreeable perspective v^ew across the 
 whole house into the garden behind. The floor is raised about 
 three feet above the level of the street, and by jetting out, both 
 towards the street and garden, forms a sort of gallery, which is 
 covered with a roof, and on which travellers pass their time, divert- 
 ing themselves with sitting or walking. From it, also, they mount 
 their horses, for fear of dirtying their feet by mounting in the 
 street. 
 
 " In some great inns there is a passage, contrived for the con- 
 veniency of people of quality, that, coming out of their norimons, 
 they may walk directly to their apartments, without being obliged 
 to pass through the fore part of the house, which is commonly not 
 over clean, and makes but an indifferent figure, being covered with 
 poor, sorry mats, and the rooms divided only by ordinary screens. 
 The kitchen is in this fore part of the house, and often fills it with 
 smoke, as they have no chimneys, but only a hole in the roof to 
 26* 
 
306 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690— 1692. 
 
 let the smoke through.' Here foot travellers and ordinary people 
 live, among the servants. People of fashion are accommodated in 
 the back part of the house, which is kept clean and neat to admi- 
 ration. Not the least spot is to be seen upon the walls, floors, 
 carpets, windows screens,^ in short, nowhere in the room, which 
 looks as if it were quite new, and but newly furnished. There are 
 no tables, chairs, benches, or other furniture in these rooms. They 
 are only adorned with some Miseratsie, of which more presently, 
 put into or hung up in the rooms, for travellers to amuse' their 
 leisure by examining, which, indeed, some of them very well de- 
 serve. The Tsubo, or garden behind the house, is also very curi- 
 ously kept, for travellers to divert themselves with walking in it, 
 and beholding the beautiful flowers it is commonly adorned with. 
 
 " The rooms in Japanese houses have seldom more than one 
 blank wall, which is plastered with clay of Osaka, a good fine sort, 
 and so left bare, without any other ornament. It is so thin that 
 the least kick would break it to pieces. On all other sides the 
 room has either windows or folding screens, which slide in grooves, 
 as occasion requires. The lower groove is cut in a sill, which runs 
 even with the mats, and the upper one in a beam, which comes 
 down two or three feet from the ceiling. The beams in which the 
 grooves run are plastered with clay of Osaka. The ceiling, to 
 show the curious running of the veins and grain of the wood, is 
 sometimes only covered with a thin, slight layer of a transparent 
 varnish. Sometimes they paste it over with the same sort of vari- 
 ously colored and flowered paper of which their screens are made. 
 The paper windows, which let light into the room, have wooden 
 shutters on both sides, taken off in the day time, but put on at 
 night. 
 
 " In the solid wall of the room there is always a Toko, as they 
 call it, or sort of a cupboard, raised about a foot or more above the 
 floor, and very near two feet deep. It commonly stands in that 
 part of the wall which is just opposite to the door, that being reck- 
 oned the most honorable. Just before this toko two extraordi- 
 narily fine mats are laid, one upon the other, and both upon the 
 ordinary mats which cover the floor. These are for people of the 
 first quality to sit upon, for, upon the arrival of travellers of less 
 note, they are removed out of the way. At the side of the toko is 
 
FIRE-PLACES. 307 
 
 a Tokiivari, as they call it, or side cupboard, with some few shelve* 
 which serve the landlord or travellers, if they please, to lay their 
 most esteemed book upon, they holding it, as the Mahometans do 
 their Alcoran, too sacred to be laid on the ground. Upon the arri- 
 val of the Dutch, this sacred book of the landlord is put out of the 
 way. Above is a drawer, where they put up the inkhorn, paper, 
 writings, books and other things of this kind. Here, also, travellers 
 find sometimes the wooden box which the natives use at night, 
 instead of a pillow. It is almost cubical, hollow, and made of six 
 thin boards joined together, curiously varnished, smoothed, and very 
 neat, about a span long, but not quite so broad, that travellers by 
 turning it may lay their head in that posture which they find the 
 most easy.* Besides this wooden pillow, travellers have no other 
 bedding to expect from the landlord, and must carry their own 
 along with them or lie on the * mats, covering themselves with their 
 clothes. In that side of the room next to the Toko is commonly 
 a balcony, serving the person lodged in this, the chief room, to 
 look out upon the neighboring garden, fields, or water, without stir- 
 ring from the carpets placed below the toko. 
 
 " Beneath the floor, which is covered with fine, well-stuffed mats, 
 is a square walled hole, which, in the winter season, after having 
 first removed the mats, they fill with ashes and lay coals upon them 
 to keep the room warm. The landladies in their room put a low 
 table upon this fire-hole, and spread a large carpet or table-cloth 
 over it, for people to sit underneath, and to defend themselves 
 against the cold. In rooms where there are no fire-holes they use 
 in the winter brass or earthen pots, very artfully made, and filled 
 with ashes, with two iron sticks, which serve instead of fire-tongs, 
 much after the same manner as they use two other small sticks at 
 table, instead of forks. 
 
 " I come now to the above mentioned Miseratsie, as they call 
 them, being curious and amusing ornaments of their rooms. In 
 our journey to court, I took notice of the following : 1. A paper 
 neatly bordered with a rich piece of embroidery, instead of a frame, 
 either with the picture of a saint done apparently with a coarse 
 pencil, and in a few, perhaps three or four, strokes, wherein, how- 
 
 * It is also used as a toilet-box, in which to keep combs, brushes, &c 
 
308 JAPAN. A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 ever, the proportions and resemblance have been so far observed, 
 that scarce anybody can miss finding out whom it was designed to 
 represent, nor help admiring the ingenuity and skill of the master ; 
 or else a judicious moral sentence of some noted philosopher or 
 poet, writ with his own hand, or the hand of some noted writing- 
 master who had a mind to show his skill by a few hasty strokes or 
 characters, indifferent enough at first sight, but nevertheless very 
 ingeniously drawn, and such as will afford sufficient matter of 
 amusement and speculation to a curious and attentive spectator ; 
 and, lest anybody should call their being genuine in question, they 
 are commonly signed, not only by the writing-masters themselves, 
 but have the hands and seals of some other witnesses put to them. 
 They are hung up nowhere else but in the toko, as the most hon- 
 orable place of the room, and this because the Japanese set a great, 
 value upon them. 
 
 2. " Pictures of Chinese, as also of birds, trees, landskips and 
 other things, upon white screens, done by some eminent master, or 
 rather scratched with a few hasty, affected strokes, after such a man- 
 ner that, unless seen at a proper distance, they scarce appear natural. 
 
 3. "A flower- vase filled with all sorts of curious flowers, and 
 green branches of trees, such as the season affords, curiously ranged 
 according to the rules of art, it being as much an art in this country 
 to arrange a flower-vase as it is in Europe to carve, or to lay a 
 table. Sometimes there is, instead, a perfuming-pan, of excellent 
 good workmanship, cast in brass or copper, resembling a crane, lion, 
 dragon, or other strange animal. I took notice once that there was 
 an earthen pot of Cologne, such as is used to keep Spauwater in, 
 with all the cracks and fissures carefully mended, used in lieu of a 
 flower-vase, it being esteemed a very great rarity, because of the 
 distant place it came from, the clay it was made of, and its uncom- 
 mon shape. 
 
 4. " Some strange, uncommon pieces of wood, wherein the colors 
 and grain either naturally run after a curious and unusual manner, 
 or have been brought by art to represent something. 
 
 5. "Some neat and beautiful network, adorning either the baL 
 cony and windows towards the garden, or the tops of the doors. 
 «creens and partitions of the chief apartments. 
 
BATHING AND SWEATING HOUSE. 309 
 
 6. "A bunch of a tree, or a piece of a rotten root, or of an old 
 stump, remarkable for their monstrous deformed shape. 
 
 " After this manner the chief and back apartments are furnished 
 in great inns, and houses of substantial people. The other rooms 
 gradually decrease in cleanliness, neatness and delicacy of furniture ; 
 the screens, windows, mats and other ornaments and household 
 goods, after they have for some time adorned the chief apartments, 
 and begin to be spotted and to grow old, being removed into the 
 other rooms successively, there to be quite worn out. The chief 
 of the other rooms is that where they keep their plate, china ware 
 and other household goods, ranged upon the floor in curious order, 
 according to their size, shape and use. Most of these are made of 
 wood, thin, but strongly varnished, the greatest part upon a dark 
 red ground. They are washed with warm water every time they 
 have been used, and wiped clean with a cloth ; by which means they 
 will, though constantly used, keep clean and neat, and in their full 
 lustre for several years. 
 
 " The small gallery or walk which jets out from {he house towards 
 the garden, leads to the house of office and to a bathing-stove, or 
 hot-house. The house of office is built on one side of the back part 
 of the house, and hath two doors to go in. Not far off stands a 
 basin filled with water to wash your hands, commonly an oblong, 
 rough stone, the upper part curiously cut out into the form of a 
 basin. A new pail of bamboo hangs near it, and is covered with a 
 neat fir or cypress board, to which they put a new handle every 
 time it hath been used, to wit, a fresh stick of the bamboo cane, it 
 being a very clean sort of a wood, and in a manner naturally var- 
 nished. The bathing-place, commonly built on the back side of the 
 garden, contains either a hot-house to sweat in, or a warm bath, and 
 sometimes both. It is made warm and got ready every evening, 
 because the Japanese usually bathe or sweat after their day's jour- 
 ney is over, thinking by this means to refresh themselves, and to 
 sweat off their weariness. As they can undress themselves in an 
 instant, so they are ready at a minute's warning to go into it ; for 
 they need but untie their sash, and all their clothes fall down at 
 once, leaving them quite naked, excepting a small band which they 
 wear close to the body about their waist. Their hot-house, which 
 they go into only to sweat, is an almost cubical trunk, or sto-ve, 
 
310 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 raised about three feet above the ground, and built close to the wal 1 
 of the bathing-place, on the outside, — not quite six feet high, but 
 about nine feet long, and of the same breadth. The floor is laid 
 with small planed laths or planks, some few inches distant from 
 each other, both for the easy passage of the rising vapors and the 
 convenient outlet of the water. You go, or rather creep in, 
 through a small door or shutter. There are two other shutters, 
 one on each side, to let out the superfluous vapor. The empty space 
 beneath, down to the ground, is enclosed with a wall to prevent the 
 vapors from getting out on the sides. Towards the yard, just be- 
 neath the hot-house, is a furnace, part of which stands out towards 
 the yard, where they put in the necessary water and plants. This 
 part is shut with a clapboard when the fire is burning, to make all 
 the vapors ascend through the inner and open part into the hot- 
 house. There are always two tubs, one of warm the other of cold 
 water, for such as have a mind to wash themselves. 
 
 " The garden is the only place in which we Dutchmen, being 
 treated in all respects little better than prisoners, have liberty to 
 walk. It is commonly square, with a back door, and walled in 
 very neatly. There are few good houses or inns without one. If 
 there be not room enough for a garden, they have at least an old 
 ingrafted plum, cherry or apricot tree ; and the older, the more 
 crooked and monstrous, the greater value they put upon it. Some- 
 times they let the branches grow into the rooms. In order to make 
 it bear larger flowers and in greater quantity, they trim it to a few, 
 perhaps two or three branches. It cannot be denied but that the 
 great number of beautiful, incarnadine double flowers, are a curi- 
 ous ornament to this back part of the house, but they have this dis- 
 advantage, that they bear no fruit. In some small houses and inns 
 of less note, where there is not room enough neither for a garden 
 nor trees, they have at least an opening or window, to let the light 
 fall into the back rooms, before which, for the amusement and diver- 
 sion of travellers, is put a small tub full of water, wherein they 
 commonly keep alive some gold or silver fish ; and for further orna- 
 ment there is generally a flower-pot or two standing there. Some- 
 times they plant dwarf trees, which will grow easily upon pumice 
 or other porous stones, without any earth at all, provided the root 
 be put into the water, whence it will suck up sufficient nourish- 
 
GARDENS. 311 
 
 ment. Ordinary people often plant the same kind of trees before 
 their street-doors. 
 
 " But to return to the Tsubo, or garden. A good one must 
 include at least thirty feet square, and consist of the following 
 essential parts : 1. The ground is covered partly with roundish 
 stones of different colors, gathered in rivers or upon the sea-shore, 
 well washed and cleaned, and those of the same kind, laid together 
 in form of beds, partly with gravel which is swept every day, and 
 kept clean and neat to admiration, the large stones being laid in 
 the middle as a path to walk upon without injuring the gravel, the 
 whole in a seeming but ingenious confusion. . 2. Some few flower- 
 bearing shrubs planted confusedly, though not without some cer- 
 tain rules. Amidst them stands sometimes a Saguer, as they call 
 it, or scarce outlandish tree, sometimes a dwarf tree or two. 
 3. A small rock or hill in a corner of the garden, made in imita- 
 tion of nature, curiously adorned with birds and insects cast in 
 brass, and placed between the stones. Sometimes the model of a 
 temple stands upon it, built, as for the sake of the prospect they 
 generally are, on a remarkable eminence or the borders of a preci- 
 pice. Often a small rivulet rushes down the stones with an agree- 
 able noise, the whole in due proportions and as near as possible 
 resembling nature. 4. A small thicket or wood on the side of the 
 hill, for which the gardeners choose such trees as will grow close 
 to one another, and plant and cut them according to their largeness, 
 nature, and the color of their flowers and leaves, so as to make 
 the whole very accurately imitate a natural wood or forest. 5. A 
 cistern or pond, as mentioned above, with live fish kept in it, and 
 surrounded with- proper plan1«, that is, such as love a watery soil, 
 and would lose their beauty and greenness if planted in a dry 
 ground. It is a particular profession to lay out these gardens, and 
 to keep them so curiously and nicely as they ought to be. 
 
 " There are innumerable smaller inns, cook-shops, saki, or ale 
 houses, pastry-cooks' and confectioners' shops, all along the road, 
 even in the midst of woods and forests, and at the tops of moun 
 tains, where a weary foot-traveller, and the meaner sort of people, 
 find at all times, for a few seni, something warm to cat, or hot tea, 
 or saki, or somewhat else of the kind, wherewith to refresh them- 
 Belves. "T is true, these cook-shops are but poor, sorry houses, if 
 
312 JAPAN. A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 compared to larger inns, being inhabited only by poor people, who 
 have enough to do to get a livelihood by this trade ; and yet, even 
 in these, there is always something or other to amuse passengers, 
 and to draw them in; sometimes a garden and orchard behind the 
 house, which is seen from the street, looking through the passage, 
 and which, by its beautiful flowers, or the agreeable sight of a 
 stream of clear water, falling down from a neighboring natural or 
 artificial hill, or by some other curious ornament of this' kind, 
 tempts people to come in and repose themselves. At other times, 
 a large flower-pot stands in the window, filled with flowering 
 branches of trees, disposed in a very curious manner. Sometimes a 
 handsome, well-looking housemaid, or a couple of young girls, well 
 dressed, stand under the door, and with great civility invite people 
 to come in, and to buy something. The eatables, such as cakes, or 
 whatever it be, are ■ kept before the fire, in an open room, sticking 
 to skewers of bamboos, so that passengers, as they go along, may 
 take them and pursue their journey without stopping. The land- 
 ladies, cooks and maids, as soon as they see anybody coming at a 
 distance, blow up -the fire, to make it look as if the victuals had 
 been just got ready. Some busy themselves with making the tea, 
 others prepare soup, others fill cups with saki, or other liquors, to 
 present them to passengers, all the while talking and chattering, 
 and commending their merchandise with a voice loud enough to be 
 heard by their next neighbors of the same profession. 
 
 " The eatables sold at these cook-shops, besides tea, and some- 
 times saki, are mansie, a sort of round cakes, which they learned to 
 make from the Portuguese, as big as common hens' eggs, and filled 
 within with black-bean flower and sugar ; cakes of the jelly of a root 
 found upon mountains, and cut into round slices, like carrots, and 
 roasted ; snails, oysters, shell-fish, and other small fish, roasted, 
 boiled, or pickled ; Chinese laxa, a thin sort of pap, or paste, 
 made of fine wheat flour, cut into small, thin, long slices, and baked ; 
 all sorts of plants, roots, and sprigs, which the season affords, washed 
 and boiled in water with salt ; innumerable other dishes peculiar 
 to this country, made of seeds, powdered roots, and vegetables, 
 boiled or baked, dressed in many different ways. 
 
 "The common sauce for these and other dishes is a little soy, 
 as they call it, mixed with saki, or the beer of the country. Saiisio 
 
TEA. 313 
 
 leaves are laid' upon the dish for ornament, and sometimes thin 
 slices of fine ginger and lemon-peel. Sometimes they put powdered 
 ginger, sansio, or the powder of some root growing ^n the country, 
 into the soup. They are also provided with sweet-meats, of several 
 different colors and sorts, which, generally speaking, are far more 
 agreeable to the eye than pleasing to the taste, being but indiffer- 
 ently sweetened with sugar, and so tough that one must have good 
 teeth to chew them. Foot travellers find it set down in their 
 printed road-books, which they always carry about them, where, 
 and at what price, the best victuals of the kind are to be got. 
 
 " Tea (since most travellers drink scarce anything else upon the 
 load) is sold at all the inns and cook-shops, besides many tea-booths 
 set up for this trade alone, in the midst of fields and woods, and at 
 the tops of mountains. The tea sold at all these places is but a 
 coarse sort, being only the largest leaves, which remain upon the 
 shrub after the youngest and tenderest have been plucked off, at 
 two different times, for the use of people of fashion, who constantly 
 drink it, before or after their meals. These larger leaves are not 
 rolled up and curled, as the better sort of tea is, but simply roasted 
 m. a pan, and continually stirred whilst they are roasting, lest they 
 should get a burnt taste. When they are done enough, they put 
 them by in straw baskets, under the roof of the house, near the 
 place where the smoke comes out. They are not a bit nicer in pre- 
 paring it for drinking, for they commonly take a good handful of 
 the tea leaves, and boil them in a large iron kettle full of water. 
 The leaves are sometimes put into a small bag ; but, if not, they have 
 a little basket swimming in the kettle, which they make use of to 
 keep the leaves down, when they have a mind to take out some of 
 the clear decoction. Half a cup of this decoction is mixed with 
 cold water, when travellers ask for it. Tea thus prepared smells 
 and tastes like lye — the leaves it is made of, besides that they are 
 of a very bad sort, being seldom less than a year old; and yet the 
 Japanese esteem it much more healthful for daily use than the 
 young, tender leaves, prepared after the Chinese manner, which 
 they say affect the head too strongly, though even these lose a great 
 part of their narcotic quality when boiled."* 
 
 * The most recent visitors to Japan all agree in representing the common 
 tea o the country as an inferior article, not suited for exportation 
 
 27 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 NUMBER OP PEOPLE ON THE ROAD. — PRINCELY RETINUES. — PILGRIMS TO 
 
 ISJE. SIUNSE PILGRIMS. NAKED DEVOTEES. RELIGIOUS BEGGARS. — ■ 
 
 BEGGING ORDER OF NUNS. JAMABO, OR MOUNTAIN PRIESTS. BUDDHIST 
 
 BEGGARS. SINGULAR BELL-CHIMING. HUCKSTERS AND PEDLERS. COUR- 
 TESANS. 
 
 " It is scarce credible," says Kampfer, " what numbers of people 
 daily travel in this country ; and I can assure the reader, from my 
 own experience, having passed it four times, that Tokaido, which 
 is, indeed, the most frequented of the seven great roads in Japan, 
 is upon some days more crowded than the public streets in any of 
 the most populous towns in Europe. This is owing partly to the 
 country's being extremely populous, partly to the frequent journeys 
 which the natives undertake, oftener than perhaps any other people. 
 
 "It is the duty of the princes and lords of the empire, as also of 
 the governors of the imperial cities and crown lands, to go to court 
 once a year to pay their homage and respect. They are attended, 
 going up and returning, by their whole court, and travel with a 
 pomp and magnificence, becoming as well their own quality and 
 riches as the majesty of the powerful monarch whom they are going 
 to see. The train of some of the most eminent fills up the road for 
 some days. Though we travelled pretty fast, yet we often met the 
 baggage and fore-runners, consisting of the servants and inferior 
 officers, for two days together, dispersed in several troops, and the 
 prince himself followed but the third day, attended with his numer- 
 ous court, all marching in admirable order. The retinue of one of 
 the chief Daimios, as they are called, is computed to amount to 
 about twenty thousand men, more or less ; that of a Seiomio to 
 about ten thousand ; that of a governor of the imperial cities and 
 
PRINCELY RETINUES. 31o 
 
 crown lands to from one to several hundreds, according to his 
 quality or revenues.* 
 
 " If two or more of these princes and lords should chance to 
 travel the same road, at the same time, they would prove a great 
 hindrance to one another, particularly if they should happen to 
 meet at the same post-house, or village; to prevent which, it is 
 usual for great princes and lords to bespeak the several post-houses 
 by which they are to pass, with all the inns, those of the first qual- 
 ity a month, others a week or two, before their arrival. The time 
 of their intended arrival is also notified in all the cities, villages, 
 and hamlets, by putting up small boards on high poles of bamboo, 
 signifying in a few characters what da^r of the month such or such 
 a lord will be at that village, to dine or to sleep there. 
 
 " Numerous troops of fore-runners, harbingers, clerks, cooks, and 
 other inferior officers, go before to provide lodgings, victuals, and 
 other things necessary for the entertainment of their prince and 
 master, and his court. They are followed by the prince's heavy 
 baggage, packed up either in small trunks, as already described, 
 and carried upon horses, each with a banner, bearing the coat-of- 
 arms and the name of the possessor, or else in large chests, covered 
 with red lackered leather, again with the possessor's coat-of-arms, 
 and carried upon men's shoulders, with multitudes of inspectors to 
 look after them. Next come great numbers of smaller retinues, 
 belonging to the chief officers and noblemen attending the prince, 
 with pikes, scymitars, bows and arrows, umbrellas, palanquins, led 
 horses, and other marks of their grandeur, suitable to their birth, 
 quality, and office. Some of these are carried in norimons, others 
 in kangos, others go on horseback. 
 
 * These great retinues are thus accounted for by Thunberg : " As both 
 the monarch himself and all the princes of the country are clothed and dress 
 their hair in the same manner as the rest of the inhabitants, and being des- 
 titute of thrones, jewels, and other like paraphernalia, cannot be so distin- 
 guished from others, they have adopted the expedient of exhibiting them- 
 selves on journeys and festive occasions according to their condition in life, 
 and the dignity of their respective offices, with a great number o£ people, 
 officers, and attendants, hovering about them." The statement already 
 quoted from Caron — see ante, p. 199 — as to the numbers composing these 
 princely retinues, is much less than that given above, and probably nearei 
 the truth. 
 
316 JAPAN. — A. D. 1C90— 1692. 
 
 " The prince's own numerous train, marching in an admirable 
 and curious order, is divided into several troops, each headed by a 
 proper commanding officer, as, 1. Five, more or less, fine horses, 
 each led by two grooms, one on each side, two footmen walking 
 behind. 2. Five or six, and sometimes more, porters, richly clad, 
 walking one by one, and carrying lackered chests, and japanned 
 neat trunks and baskets, upon their shoulders, wherein are kept the 
 wearing apparel and other necessaries for the daily use of the 
 prince, each porter attended by two footmen. 3. Ten or more 
 fellows, walking one by one, and carrying rich scymitars, pikes of 
 state, fire-arms, and other weapons, in lackered wooden cases, as, 
 also, quivers with bows and # arrows. Sometimes, for magnificence 
 sake, there are more chest-bearers and led horses following this 
 troop. 4. Two, three, or more men, who carry pikes of state, as 
 the badges of the prince's power and authority, adorned at the 
 upper end with bunches of cock feathers, or other ornaments pecu- 
 liar to such or such a prince. They walk one by one, and are 
 attended each by two footmen. 5. A gentleman, attended by two 
 footmen, carrying the prince's hat, worn as a shelter from the heat 
 of the sun, and which is covered with black velvet. 6. A gen- 
 tleman carrying the prince's sombrero, or umbrella, which is covered 
 in like manner with black velvet, this person also attended by tovo 
 footmen. 7. Some more bearers of trunks, covered with varnished 
 leather, with the prince's coat-of-arms upon them, each with two 
 men to take care of it. 8. Sixteen, more or less, of the prince's 
 pages, and gentlemen of his bed-chamber, taken out from among 
 the first quality of his court, richly clad, and walking two and two 
 before his norimon. 9. The prince himself, sitting in a stately 
 norimon, carried by six or eight men, clad in rich liveries, with 
 several others "walking at the norimon's sides, to take it up by 
 turns; also, two or three gentlemen of the prince's bed-chamber, to 
 give him what he wants and asks for, and to assist and support 
 him in getting in or out. 10. Two or three horses of state, the 
 saddles covered with black. One of these horses carries a large 
 elbow-chair, which is sometimes covered with black velvet. These 
 horses are attended each by several grooms and footmen in liveries, 
 and some are led by the prince's own pages. 11. Two pike-bear- 
 ers. 12. Ten or more people, carrying each two baskets of a 
 
PRINCELY RETINUES. 317 
 
 monstrous size, fixed to the ends of a pole, which they lay on their 
 shoulders in such a manner that one basket hangs down before an<£ 
 the other behind them. These baskets are more for state than for 
 any use. Sometimes some chest-bearers walk among them, to 
 increase the troop. In this order marches the prince's own train, 
 which is followed by six to twelve led horses with their leaders, 
 grooms and footmen, all in liveries. The procession is closed by a 
 multitude of the prince's domestics and other officers of his court, 
 with their own numerous trains and attendants, pike-bearers, chest- 
 bearers and footmen, in liveries. Some of these are carried in kan- 
 gos, and the whole troop is headed by the prince's high-steward, 
 carried in a norimon. If one of the prince's sons accompanies his 
 father in this journey to court, he follows with his own train imme- 
 diately after his father's norimon. 
 
 " It is a sight exceedingly curious and worthy of admiration, to 
 see all the persons who compose the numerous train of a great 
 prince, clad, the pike-bearers, the norimon-men and livery-men only 
 excepted, in black silk, marching in an elegant order, with a decent, 
 becoming gravity, and keeping so profound a silence, that not the 
 least noise is to be heard, save what must necessarily arise from the 
 motion and rushing of their dresses, and the trampling of the horses 
 and men. On the other hand, it appears ridiculous to an European 
 to see all the pike-bearers and norimon-men, with their clothes 
 tucked up above their waists, exposing their nakedness to the spec- 
 tators' view, with only a piece of cloth about their loins. What 
 appears still more odd and whimsical is to see the pages, pike-bear- 
 ers, umbrella and hat bearers, chest-bearers, and all the footmen in 
 liveries, affect, when they pass through some remarkable town, or 
 by the train of another prince or lord, a strange mimic march or 
 dance. Every step they make, they draw up one foot quite to 
 their backs, stretching out the arm on the opposite side as far as 
 they can, and putting themselves in such a posture, as if they had a 
 mind to swim through the air. Meanwhile the pikes, hats, umbrel- 
 las, chests, boxes, baskets, and whatever else they carry, are danced 
 and tossed about in a very singular manner, answering to the mo- 
 tion of their bodies. The norimon-men, who have their sleeves 
 tied with a string as near the shoulders as possible, so as to leave 
 their arms naked, carry the pole of the norimon either upon their 
 27* 
 
318 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 shoulders, or el&e upon the palms of their hands, holding it above 
 their heads. Whilst they hold it up with one arm, they stretch out 
 the other, putting the hand into a horizontal posture, whereby, and 
 by their short, deliberate steps and stiff knees', they affect a ridicu- 
 lous fear and circumspection. If the prince steps out of his nori- 
 mon into one of the green huts which are purposely built for him 
 at convenient distances on the road, or if he goes into a private 
 house, either to drink a dish of tea or for any other purpose, he 
 always leaves a kobang with the landlord as a reward for his 
 trouble. At dinner or supper the expense- is much greater. 
 
 "All the pilgrims who go to Isje, whatever province of the 
 empire they come from, must travel over part of this great road. 
 This pilgrimage is made at all times of the year, but particularly in 
 the spring, at which season vast multitudes of these pilgrims are 
 seen upon the roads. The Japanese of both sexes, young and old, 
 rich and poor, undertake this meritorious journey, generally speak- 
 ing, on foot, in order to obtain, at this holy place, indulgences 
 and remission of their sins. Some of these pilgrims are so poor, 
 that they must live wholly upon what they get by begging. On 
 this account, and by reason of their great number, they are exceed- 
 ingly troublesome to the princes and lords, who at that time of the 
 year go to court, or come thence, though otherwise they address 
 themselves in a very civil manner, bareheaded, and with a low, sub- 
 missive voice, saying, ' Great Lord, be pleased to give the poor 
 pilgrim a seni, towards the expense of his journey to Isje,' or words 
 to that effect. Of all the Japanese, the inhabitants of Jedo and 
 the province Osju are the most inclined to this pilgrimage. Chil- 
 dren, if apprehensive of severe punishment for their misdemeanors, 
 will run away from their parents and go to Isje, thence to fetch an 
 Ofarri, or indulgence, which upon their return is deemed a suf- 
 ficient expiation of their crimes, and a sure means to reconcile 
 them to their friends. Multitudes of these pilgrims are obliged 
 to pass whole nights, lying in the open fields, exposed to all 
 the injuries of wind and weather, some for want of room in inns, 
 others out of poverty ; and of these last many are found dead upon 
 the" road, in which case their Ofarri, if they have any about them, 
 is carefully taken up and hid in the next tree or bush. 
 
 " Others make this pilgrimage in a comical and merry way, draw* 
 
PILGRIM BEGGARS. 31f 
 
 \ng people's eyes upon them, as well as getting their money. The;; 
 form themselves into companies, generally of four persons, clad ii: 
 white linen, after the fashion of the Kuge, or persons of the holy 
 ecclesiastical court of the Dairi. Two of them walking a grave, 
 glow, deliberate pace, and standing often still, carry a large barrow, 
 adorned and hung about with fir-branches and cut white paper, on 
 which they place a resemblance of a large bell, made of light sub- 
 stance, or a kettle, or something else, alluding to some old romantic 
 history of their gods and ancestors ; whilst a third, with a com- 
 mander's staff in his hand, adorned, out of respect to his office, with 
 a bunch of white paper, walks, or rather dances, before the barrow, 
 singing with a dull, heavy voice, a song relating to the subject 
 they are about to represent. Meanwhile, the fourth goes begging 
 before the houses, or addresses himself to charitable travellers, and 
 receives and keeps the money which is given them. Their day's 
 journeys are so short, that they can easily spend the whole summer 
 upon such an expedition. 
 
 " The SiuTise, another remarkable sight travellers meet with upon 
 the roads, are people, who go to visit in pilgrimage the thirty-three 
 chief Quanwon temples, which lie dispersed throughout the empire. 
 They commonly travel two or three together, singing a miserable 
 Quanwon-song from house to house, and sometimes playing upon a 
 fiddle, or upon a guitar, as vagabond beggars do in Germany. 
 However, they do not importune travellers for their charity. They 
 have the names of such Quanwon temples as they have not yet 
 visited writ upon a small board hanging about their necks. They 
 are clad in white, after a very singular fashion, peculiar only to this 
 sect. Some people like so well to ramble about the country after 
 this manner that they will apply themselves to no other trade and 
 profession, but choose to end their days in this perpetual pil- 
 grimage. 
 
 " Sometimes one meets with very odd sights ; as, for instance, 
 people running naked along the roads in ihe hardest frosts, wear- 
 ing only a little straw about their waists. These people generally 
 undertake so extraordinary and troublesome a journey to visit cer- 
 tain temples, pursuant to religious vows, which they promised to ful- 
 fil in case they should obtain, from the bounty of their gods, deliver- 
 ance from some fatal distemper, they themselves, their parents or 
 
320 JAPAN. A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 relations, labor under, or from some other great misfortunes they 
 were threatened with. They live very poorly and miserably upon 
 the road, receive no charity, and proceed on their journey by them- 
 selves, almost perpetually running. 
 
 " Multitudes of beggars crowd the roads in all parts of the 
 empire, but particularly on the so much frequented Tokaido, 
 among them many lusty young fellows, who shave their heads. 
 To this shaved begging tribe belongs a certain remarkable religious 
 order of young girls, called Bikuni, which is as much as to say, 
 nuns. They live under the protection of the nunneries at Kama- 
 kura and Miako, to which they pay a certain sum a year, of what 
 they get by begging, as an acknowledgment of their authority. 
 They are, in my opinion, by much the handsomest girls we saw in 
 Japan. The daughters of poor parents, if they be handsome and 
 agreeable, apply for and easily obtain this privilege of begging in 
 the habit of nuns, knowing that beauty is one of the most persuasive 
 inducements to generosity. The Jamabo, or begging mountain 
 priests (of whom more hereafter), frequently incorporate their own 
 daughters into this religious order, and take their wives from among 
 these Bikuni. Some of them have been bred up as courtesans, and 
 having served their time, buy the privilege of entering into this 
 religious order, therein to spend the remainder of their youth and 
 beauty. They live two or three together, and make an excursion 
 every day some few miles from their dwelling-house. They partic- 
 ularly watch people of fashion, who travel in norimons, or in kangos, 
 or on horseback. As soon as they perceive somebody coming they 
 draw near and address themselves, though not all together, but singly, 
 every one accosting a gentleman by herself singing a rural song ; 
 and if he proves .very liberal and charitable, she will keep him com- 
 pany and divert him for some hours. As, on the one hand, very 
 little religious blood seems to circulate in their veins, so, on the 
 other, it doth not appear that they labor under any considerable 
 degree of poverty. It is true, indeed, they conform themselves to 
 the rules of their order, by shaving their heads, but they take care 
 to cover and to wrap them up in caps or hoods made of black silk. 
 They go decently and neatly dressed, after the fashion of ordinary 
 people. They wear also a large hat to cover their faces, which are 
 often painted, and to shelter themselves from the he"at of the sun, 
 
JAM ABO. 321 
 
 They commonly have a shepherd's rod or hook in their hands. 
 Their voice, gestures, and apparent behavior, are neither too bold 
 and daring, nor too much dejected and affected, but free, comely 
 and seemingly modest. However, not to extol their modesty 
 beyond what it deserves, it must be observed, that they make noth- 
 ing of laying their bosoms quite bare to the view of charitable trav- 
 ellers, all the while they keep them company, under pretence of Us 
 being customary in the country ; and, for aught I know, they may 
 be, though never so religiously shaved, full as impudent and lasciv- 
 ious as any public courtesan. 
 
 " Another religious begging order is that of the Jamabo, as 
 they are commonly called ; that is, the mountain priests, or rather 
 Jamabuo, mountain soldiers, because at all times they go armed 
 with swords and scymitars. They do not shave their heads, but fol- 
 low the rules of the first founder of this order, who mortified his 
 body by climbing up steep, high mountains ; at least, they conform 
 themselves thereunto in their dress, apparent behavior, and some 
 outward ceremonies ; for they are fallen short of his rigorous way 
 of life. They have a head, or general, of their order, residing at 
 Miako, to whom they are obliged to bring a certain sum of money 
 every year, and who has the distribution of dignities and of titles, 
 whereby they are known among themselves. They commonly live 
 in the neighborhood of some famous Kami temple, and accost 
 travellers in the name of that Kami which is worshipped there, 
 making a short discourse of his holiness and miracles, with a 
 loud, coarse voice. Meanwhile, to make the noise still louder, they 
 rattle their long staffs, loaded at the upper end with iron rings, to 
 take up the charity money which is given them ; and, last of all, 
 they blow a trumpet made of a large shell. They carry their chil- 
 dren along with them upon the same begging errand, clad like their 
 fathers, but with their heads shaved. These little bastards arc 
 exceedingly troublesome and importunate with travellers, and com- 
 monly take care to light on them, as they are going up some hill or 
 mountain, where, because of the difficult ascent, they cannct well 
 escape, nor indeed otherwise get rid of them without giving them 
 something. In some places they and their fathers accost travellers 
 in company with a troop of Bikuni, and, with their rattling, sing- 
 ing, trumpeting, chattering and crying, make such a frightful noise 
 
322 JAPAN. A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 as would make one almost mad or deaf. These mountain priests 
 are frequently applied to by superstitious people, for conjuring, for- 
 tune-telling, foretelling future events, recovering lost goods, and the 
 like purposes. They profess themselves to be of the Kami religion, 
 as established of old, and yet they are never suffered to attend, or 
 to take care of, any of the Kami temples. 
 
 " There are many more beggars travellers meet with along the 
 roads. Some of these are old, and, in all appearance, honest men, 
 who, the better to prevail upon people to part with their charity, 
 are shaved and clad after the fashion of the Budsdo priests. Some- 
 times there are two of them standing together, each with a small, 
 oblong book before him. This book contains part of their Fokekio, 
 or Bible, printed in the significant or learned language.* However., 
 I would not have the reader think, as if they themselves had any 
 understanding in that language, or know how to read the book 
 placed before them. JThey only learn some part of it by heart, and 
 •speak it aloud, looking towards the book, as if they did actu- 
 ally read in it, and expecting something from their hearers, as a 
 reward for their trouble. 
 
 " Others are found sitting near some river, or running water, 
 making a Siegaki, — a certain ceremony for the relief of departed 
 souls. This Siegaki is made after the following manner : They 
 take a green branch of the Fauna Skimmi tree, arid, murmuring 
 certain words with a low voice, wash and scour it with some shav- 
 ings of wood, whereon they had written the names of some deceased 
 persons. This they believe to contribute greatly to relieve and 
 refresh the departed souls confined in purgatory ; and, for aught I 
 know, it may answer that purpose full as well as any number 
 of masses, as they are celebrated to the same end in Roman 
 Catholic countries. Any person that hath a mind to purchase the 
 'benefit of this washing, for himself or his relations and friends, 
 throws a seni upon the mat, which is spread out near the beg- 
 gar, who does not so much as offer to return him any manner of 
 thanks for it, thinking his art and devotion deserve still better ; 
 resides that, it is not customary amongst beggars of note* to 
 thank people for their charity. Any one who hath learned tha 
 
 * This is the Sanscrit. 
 
PILGRIM BEGGARS. 323 
 
 proper ceremonies necessary to make the Siegaki, is at liberty to 
 do it. 
 
 " Others of this tribe, who make up far the greater part, sit 
 upon the road all day long, upon a small, coarse mat. They have 
 a flat bell, like a broad mortar, lying before them, and do nothing 
 else but repeat, with a lamentable singing tune, the word Namada, 
 which is contracted from Namu Amida Budsu, a short form of 
 prayer wherewith they address Amida, as the patron and advocate 
 of departed souls. Meanwhile they beat almost continually with a 
 small wooden hammer upon the aforesaid bell, and this, they say, 
 in order to be the sooner heard by Amida, and, I am apt to think, 
 not without an intent too to be the better taken notice of by pas- 
 sengers. 
 
 " Another sort we met with as we went along were differently 
 clad, some in an ecclesiastical, others in a secular habit. These stood 
 in the fields, next to the road, and commonly had a sort of altar 
 standing before them, upon which they placed the idol of their 
 Briareus, or Quanwon, as they call him, carved in wood, and gilt ; 
 or the pictures of some other idols, scurvily done, as, for instance, 
 the picture of Amida, the supreme judge of departed souls ; of 
 Se?naus, or the head-keeper of the prison, whereunto the con- 
 demned souls are confined ; of Dsisoo, or the supreme commander 
 in the purgatory of children, and some others, wherewith, and by 
 some representations of the flames and torments prepared for the 
 wicked in a future world, they endeavor to stir up in passengers 
 compassion and charity. 
 
 " Other beggars, and these, to all appearance, honest enough, 
 are met sitting along the road, clad much after the same manner 
 with the Quanwon beggars, with a Dsisoo staff in their hand. These 
 have made vow not to speak during a certain time, and express 
 their want and desire only by a sad, dejected, woeful countenance.* 
 
 " Not to mention numberless other common beggars, some sick, 
 some stout and lusty enough, who get people's charity by praying, 
 singing, playing upon fiddles, guitars, and other musical instru- 
 
 * The letters of the Jesuit missionaries contain accounts of Buddhist devotees 
 who went so far as to drown or otherwise destroy themselves. Kampfer, 
 and the writers since his time, make no mention of such extreme fanaticism, 
 which, however, is a natural outgrowth from the doctrine of the Buddhists 
 
324 JAPAN. A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 merits, or performing some juggler's tricks, I will close the account 
 of this vermin with an odd, remarkable sort of a beggar's music, or 
 rather chime of bells, we sometimes, but rarely, met with in our 
 journey to court. A young boy, with a sort of a wooden machine 
 pendent from his neck, and a rope, with eight strings about it, 
 from which hang down eight bells, of different sounds, turns round 
 in a circle, with a swiftness scarce credible, in such a manner 
 that both the machine, which rests upon his shoulders, and the 
 bells, turn round with him horizontally, the boy, in the mean while, 
 with great dexterity and quickness, beating them with two ham- 
 mers, makes a strange, odd sort of a melody. To increase the 
 noise, two people sitting near him beat, one upon a large, the 
 other upon a smaller drum. Those who are pleased with their 
 performance throw them some seni as they pass.* 
 
 " The crowd and throng upon the roads is not a little increased 
 Dy numberless small retail merchants, and children of country 
 people, who run about from morning to night, following travellers, 
 and offering them for sale their poor, for the most part .eatable, 
 merchandise — such as several cakes and sweetmeats, wherein the 
 quantity of sugar is so inconsiderable that it is scarce perceptible, 
 other cakes, of different sorts, made of flour, roots boiled in water 
 and salt, road-books, straw-shoes for horses and men, ropes, strings, 
 tooth-pickers, and a multitude of other trifles, made of wood, straw, 
 reed, and bamboos. 
 
 * Great numbers of the Japanese musicians, as Kampfer tells us in 
 another place, are blind men, who constitute a sort of order or society, 
 which boasts as its legendary founder a certain general, of the family of the 
 Feiji, who, at the time of the civil war which ended in the destruction of that 
 family, was taken prisoner by Joritomo. Notwithstanding repeated attempts 
 at escape, he was very kindly treated, and was pressed to enter into the 
 service of his captor. But, not being able to look upon the destroyer of 
 the Feiji without an irresistible desire to kill him, not to be outdone in gen- 
 erosity, he plucked out his eyes and presented them to Joritomo on a plate ! 
 
 There is another — more ancient, but less numerous — order of the blind, 
 composed exclusively of ecclesiastical persons, and claiming as its founder a 
 legendary prince, who cried himself blind at the death of his beautiful 
 mistress. 
 
 The blind are numerous, and disorders of the eyes are very common in 
 Japan. 
 
COURTESANS. 325 
 
 " Nor must I forget to take notice of the numberless wenches 
 the great and small inns and the tea-booths and cook-shops in 
 villages and hamlets are furnished withal. About noon, when they 
 have done dressing and painting themselves, they make their ap- 
 pearance, standing under the door of the house, or sitting upon the 
 small gallery around it, whence, with a smiling countenance and good 
 words, they invite the travelling troops that pass by to call in at their 
 inn, preferably to others. In some places, where there are several 
 inns standing near one another, they make, with their chattering and 
 rattling, no inconsiderable noise, and prove not a little troublesome. 
 
 " I cannot forbear mentioning in this place a small mistake of 
 Mr. Caron, in his account of Japan, where he shows so tender a 
 regard for the honor of the Japanese sex (perhaps out of respect to 
 his lady, who was a Japan woman) as 1 to assert that, except in the 
 privileged houses devoted to it, this trade is not elsewhere carried 
 on. It is unquestionably true that there is hardly a public inn 
 upon the great island Nipon, but what is provided with courtesans, 
 and if too many customers resort to one place, the neighboring inn- 
 keepers will lend their wenches, on condition that what money they 
 get shall be faithfully paid them. Nor is it a new custom come 
 up but lately, or since Mr. Caron's time. On the contrary, it is 
 of very old date, and took its rise, as the Japanese say, many hun- 
 dred years ago, in the times of that brave general and first secular 
 monarch, Joritomo, who, apprehensive lest his soldiers, weary of 
 his long and tedious expeditions, and desirous to return home to 
 their wives and children, should desert his army, thought it much 
 more advisable to indulge them in this particular." 
 28 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 DEPARTURE PROM NAGASAKI. — TRAIN OF THE DUTCH. — THE DAY'S JOURNEY 
 
 TREATMENT OP THE DUTCH. RESPECT SHOWN THEM IN THE ISLAND OP 
 
 XIMO. CARE WITH WHICH THEY ARE WATCHED. INNS AT WHICH THEY 
 
 LODGE. THEIR RECEPTION AND TREATMENT THERE. — POLITENESS OP THE 
 
 JAPANESE. LUCKY AND UNLUCKY DAYS. SEIMEI, THE ASTROLOGER. 
 
 " All the princes, lords, and vassals of the Japanese empire 
 being obliged," says Kampfer, " to make their appearance at court 
 once a year, it hath been determined by the emperor what time 
 and what day they are to set out on their journey. The same is 
 observed with regard to the Dutch, and the fifteenth or sixteenth 
 day of the first Japanese month, which commonly falls in with the 
 middle of our February, hath been fixed for our constant departure. 
 Towards that time we get everything ready to set out, having first 
 sent by sea, as already mentioned, to the city of Simonoseki the 
 presents we are to make, sorted and carefully packed, together 
 with the other heavy baggage, and the victuals and kitchen furni- 
 ture for our future travels. Three or four weeks after, and a few 
 days before our departure, our president, attended with his usual 
 train, goes to visit the two governors of Nagasaki, at their palaces, 
 to take his leave of them, and to recommend the Dutch who re- 
 main in our factory to their favor and protection. The next day, 
 all the goods and other things which must be carried along with 
 us are marked — every bale or trunk — with a small board, where? 
 upon is writ the possessor's name, and the Contents. The day of 
 our departure, all the officers of our island, and all persons who 
 are any ways concerned with our affairs, particularly the future 
 companions of our voyage, come over to Desima early in the morn- 
 ing. They are followed soon after by both governors, attended 
 with their whole numerous court, or else by their deputies, who 
 come to wish us a good journey. The governors — or their depu- 
 
DUTCH JOURNEY TO COURT. 
 
 ties — having been entertained as usual upon this occasion, and 
 taken their leave, are by us accompanied out of our island, which 
 is done commonly about nine in the morning, at which time, also, 
 we set out on our journey. The Bugio, or commander-in-chief, of 
 our train, and the Dutch president, enter their norhnons. The 
 chief interpreter, if he be old, is carried in an ordinary kango ; 
 others mount on horseback, and the servants go afoot. All the 
 Japanese officers of our island, and several friends and acquaint- 
 ances of our Japanese companions, keep us company out of the 
 town so far as the next inn. 
 
 " Our train is not the same in the three several parts of our 
 journey. Over the island Kiusiu, it may amount, with all the 
 servants and footmen, as, also, the gentlemen whom the lords of 
 the several provinces we pass through send to compliment us, and 
 to keep us company during our stay in their dominions, to about 
 an hundred persons. In our voyage by sea it is not much less, all 
 the sailors and watermen taken in. In the last part, over the great 
 island Xipon, from Osaka to Jedo, it is considerably greater, and 
 consists of no less than an hundred and fifty people, and this, by 
 reason of the presents and other goods which came from Naga- 
 saki, as far as Osaka by sea, but must now be taken out and carried 
 by land to Jedo, by horses and men. 
 
 " All our heavy baggage is commonly sent away some hours 
 before we set out ourselves, lest it should be a hindrance to us, as, 
 also, to give timely notice to our landlords of our arrival. We 
 set out early in the morning, and, save only one hour for dinner, 
 travel till evening, and, sometimes, till late at night, making from 
 ten to thirteen Japanese leagues a day. In our voyage by sea, we 
 put into some harbor, and come to an anchor every night, advanc- 
 ing forty Japanese water-leagues a day at farthest. 
 
 " We are better treated, and more honorably received, in our 
 journey over Kiusiu than upon the great island Xipon, though 
 everywhere we have much more civility shown us by the inhabi- 
 tants of the cities and districts through which we pass, than by our 
 Nagasakian companions, and our own servants, who eat our bread 
 and travel at our expense. In our journey across the island Kiu- 
 siu, we receive nearly the same honors and civility from the lords 
 of the several provinces we pass through, as they show to travelling 
 
328 JAPAN. A. D. 1690—1692. • 
 
 princes and their retinues. The roads are swept and cleaned before 
 us, and in cities and villages they are watered to lay the dust. 
 The common people, laborers and idle spectators, who are so very 
 troublesome to travellers upon the great island Nipon, are kept out 
 of the way, and the inhabitants of the houses on either side of the- 
 roads and streets see us go by, either sitting in the back part of 
 their houses, or kneeling in the fore p*rt, behind a screen, with 
 great respect and in a profound silence. All the princes and lords, 
 whose dominions we are to pass through, send one of their noble- 
 men to compliment us, as soon as we enter upon ■ their territories ; 
 but, as he is not suffered to address us in person, he makes his com- 
 pliment in his master's name to the Bugio, or commander-in-chief 
 of our train, and to the chief interpreter, offering, at the same time, 
 what horses and men we want for us and our baggage. He like- 
 wise orders four footmen to walk by every Dutchman's side, and 
 two gentlemen of some note at his court, who are clad in black silk, 
 with staffs in their hands, to precede the whole train. After this 
 manner they lead us through their master's territories, and, when 
 we come to the limits thereof, the Japanese companions of our 
 voyage are treated with saki and soca?w, and so they take their 
 leave. For our passage over the bays of Omura and Simabara, 
 the lords of these two places lend us their own pleasure-barges, and 
 their own watermen, besides that they furnish us with abundance 
 of provisions, without expecting even so much as a small present in 
 return for their civil and courteous behavior ; and yet our thievish 
 interpreters never miss to lay hold of this advantage, putting this 
 article upon our accounts as if we had actually been at the expense ; 
 and they commonly put the money into their own pockets. In our 
 whole journey from Nagasaki to Kokura, everybody we meet with 
 shows us and our train that deference and respect which is due only 
 to the princes and lords of the country. Private travellers, whether 
 they travel on foot or on horseback, must retire out of the way — 
 those who hesitate about it being compelled to it by the officers 
 — and, bareheaded, humbly bowing, wait in the next field till our 
 whole retinue is gone by. I took notice of some country people ; 
 who do not only retire out of the way, but turn us their back, as 
 not worthy to behold us — the greatest mark of civility a Japanese 
 can possibly show. None, or but few, of these public marks of 
 
INCIDENTS OF THE JOURNEY. 329 
 
 _. • . _ .__ 
 
 honor and respect are shown us in our journey over the great island 
 Nipon. 
 
 " As to what concerns our accommodation on the road, the same 
 is — with regard to the carriage of us and of our baggage, tha 
 number of horses and men provided for that purpose, the inns, lodg- 
 ings, eating, and attendance — as good for our money as we could 
 possibly desire. But, on the other hand, if we consider the narrow 
 compass allowed us, we have too much reason to complain ; for we 
 are treated in a manner like prisoners, deprived of all liberty, ex- 
 cepting that of looking about the country from our horses, or out 
 of our kangos, which, indeed, it is impossible for them to deny us. 
 As soon as a Dutchman alights from his horse (which is taken very 
 ill, unless urgent necessity obliges him), he that rides before our 
 train, and the whole train after him, must stop suddenly, and the 
 Dosiu and two other attendants must come down from their horses 
 to take immediate care of him. Nay, they watch us to that degree 
 that they will not leave us alone, not even for the most necessary 
 occasions. The Bugio, or commander-in-chief of our train, studies 
 day and night, not only the contents of his instructions, but the 
 journals of two or three preceding journeys, in order exactly, and 
 step by step, to follow the actions and behavior of his predecessors. 
 'T is looked upon as the most convincing proof of his faithfulness 
 and good conduct still to exceed them. Nay, some of these block- 
 heads are so capricious that no accident whatever can oblige them 
 to go to any other inns but those we had been at the year before, 
 even though we should, upon this account, be forced in the worst 
 weather, with the greatest inconveniency, and at the very peril of 
 our lives, to travel till late at night. 
 
 " We go to the same inns which the princes and lords of the 
 country resort to, that is, to the very best of every place. The 
 apartments are at that time hung with the colors and arms of the 
 Dutch East India Company, and this in order to notify to the 
 neighborhood who they be that lodge there, as is customary in the 
 country. We always go to the same inns, with this difference only 
 •that, upon our return from Jedo, we lie at the place we dined at in 
 going up, by this means equally to divide the trouble, which is 
 much greater at night than at dinner. We always take up our 
 lodging in the back apartment of the house, which is by much the 
 28* 
 
330 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 • : . 
 
 plcasantest ; also otherwise, as has been mentioned, reckoned thfi 
 chief. The landlord observes the same customs upon our arrival, 
 as upon the arrival of the princes and lords of the empire. He 
 comes out of the town or village into the fields to meet us, clad in a 
 kamisimo, or garment of ceremony, and wearing a short scymetar stuck 
 in his girdle, making his compliments with a low bow, which before 
 the norimons of the Bugio and our Resident is so low, that he 
 touches the ground with his hands and almost with his forehead. 
 This done, he hastens back to his house, and receives us at the 
 entry a second time, in the same manner, and with the same com 
 pliments. 
 
 " As soon as we are come to the inn, our guardians and keepers 
 carry us forthwith across the house to our apartments. Nor, indeed, 
 are we so much displeased at this, since the number of spectators 
 and the petulant scoffing of the children, but, above all, the exhaus- 
 tion of a fatiguing journey, make us desirous to take our rest, the 
 sooner the better. We are, as it were, confined to our apartments, 
 having no other liberty but to walk out into the small garden behind 
 the house. All other avenues, all the doors, windows and holes, 
 which open any prospect towards the streets or country, are care- 
 fully shut and nailed up, in order, as they would fain persuade us, 
 to defend us and our goods from thieves, but in fact to watch and 
 guard us as thieves and deserters. It must be owned, however, 
 that this superabundant care and watchfulness is considerably less- 
 ened upon our return, when we have found means to insinuate our- 
 selves into their favor, and by presents and otherwise to procure 
 their connivance. 
 
 "The Bugio takes possession of the best apartment after ours. 
 The several rooms next to our own are taken up by the Dosiu, 
 interpreters and other chief officers of our retinue, in order to be 
 always near at hand to watch our conduct,' and to care that none 
 of our landlord's domestics nor any other person presume to come 
 into our apartment, unless it be by their leave and in their pres- 
 ence ; and in their absence they commit this care to some of their 
 own or our servants ; though all the companions of our voyage in 
 general are strictly charged to have a watchful eye over us. Those 
 who exceed their fellow-servants in vigilance are, by way of encour- 
 
RECEPTION AT THE INNS. 331 
 
 agement, permitted to make the journey again the next year. 
 Otherwise they stand excluded for two years. 
 
 " As soon as we have taken possession of our apartment, in 
 comes the landlord with some of his chief male domestics, 
 each with a dish of tea in his hand, which they present to every 
 one of us with a low bow, according to his rank and dignity, 
 and repeating, with a submissive, deep-fetched voice, the words, 
 ah ! ah ! ah ! They are all clad in their garments of ceremony, 
 which they wear only upon great occasions,' and have each a 
 short scymetar stuck in his girdle, which they never quit, 
 so long as the company stays in the house. This done, the 
 necessary apparatus for smoking is brought in, corMsting of a 
 board of wood or brass, though not always of the same structure, 
 upon which are placed a small fire-pan with coals, a pot to spit in, 
 a small box filled with tobacco cut small, and some long pipes with 
 small brass heads ; as also another japanned board, or dish, with 
 Socano* that is, something to eat, as, for instance, several sorts of 
 fruits, figs, nuts, several sorts of cakes, chiefly mansie and rice 
 cakes hot, several sorts of roots boiled in water, sweetmeats, and 
 other trumperies of this kind. All these things are brought first 
 into the Bugio's room, then into ours. As to other necessaries 
 travellers may have occasion for, they are generally, in the case of 
 native travellers, served by the housemaids. These wenches also 
 wait at table, taking that opportunity to engage their guests to 
 further favors. But it is quite otherwise with us ; for even the 
 landlords themselves and their male domestics, after they have pre- 
 sented us with a dish of tea, as above said, are not suffered upon 
 any account whatever to enter our apartments ; but whatever we 
 want it is the sole business of our own servants to provide us with. 
 
 " There are no other spitting-pots brought into the room but that 
 which comes along with the tobacco. If there be occasion for 
 more they make use of small pieces of bamboo, a hand broad and 
 high, sawed from between the joints and hollowed. The can- 
 dles brought in at night are hollow in* the middle ; the wick, which 
 is of paper, being wound about a wooden stick before the tallow is 
 
 * Froez, in one of his lettei-s, defines this Japanese word, as signifying a 
 kind of salted vegetable, like olives. It seems to include all kinds of refresh- 
 ments occasionally offered to visitors. 
 
332 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 laid on. For this reason, also, the candlesticks have a punch or 
 bodkin at top, which the candles are fixed upon. They burn very 
 quick, and make a great deal of smoke and smell, the oil or 
 tallow being made of the berries of bay-trees, camphor-trees, and 
 some others of the kind. It is somewhat odd and ridiculous to see 
 the whirling motion of the ascending smoke, followed by the flame, 
 when the candle is taken off the punch at the top of the candlestick. 
 Instead of lamps, they make use of small, flat, earthen vessels, filled 
 with train-oil made -of the fat of whales, or of oil made of cotton- 
 seed. The wick is made of rush, and the abovesaid earthen ves- 
 sel stands in another filled with water, or in a square lantern, that, 
 in case the«bil should by chance take fire, no damage may there- 
 upon come to the house. 
 
 " The Japanese, in their journeys, sit down to table thrice a day, 
 besides what they eat between meals. They begin early in the morning 
 and before break of day, at least before they set out, with a good, 
 substantial breakfast ; then follows dinner at noon," and the day is 
 concluded with a plentiful supper at night. It being forbid to play 
 at cards, they sit after meals, drinking and singing some songs, to 
 make one another merry, or else they propose some riddles round, 
 or play at some other game, and he that cannot explain the riddle, 
 or loses the game, is obliged to drink a glass. It is again quite 
 otherwise with us, -for we sit at table and eat our victuals very 
 quietly. Our cloth is laid, and the dishes dressed after the Euro- 
 pean manner, but by Japanese cooks. We are presented, besides, 
 by the landlord, each with a Japanese dish. We drink European 
 wines and the rice-beer of the country hot. All our diversion is 
 confined, in the day-time, to the small garden which is behind the 
 house ; at night to the bath, in case we please to make use of it. 
 No other pleasure is allowed us, no manner of conversation with the 
 domestics, male or female, excepting what, through the connivance 
 of our inspectors, some of us find means to procure at night in pri- 
 vate and in their own rooms. 
 
 " When everything is ready for us to set out again, the landlord 
 is called, and our president, in presence of the two interpreters, pays 
 him the reckoning in gold, laid upon a small salver. He draws 
 near, in a creeping posture, kneeling, holding his hands down to th« 
 floor, and when he takes the salver which the money is laid upon, 
 
UNIVERSAL POLITENESS. 
 
 he bows down his forehead almost quite to the ground, in token of 
 submission and gratitude, uttering with a deep voice the words 
 ah I ah ! ah ! whereby in this country inferiors show their defer- 
 ence and respect to their superiors. He then prepares to make the 
 same compliment to the other Dutchmen ; but our interpreters gen- 
 erally excuse him this trouble, and make him return in the same 
 crawling posture. Every landlord hath two kobangs paid him for 
 dinner, and three for supper and lodgings at night. For this 
 money he is to provide victuals enough for our whole train, the 
 horses, the men that look after them, and the porters, only excepted. 
 The same sum is paid to the landlords in the cities, where we stay 
 some days, as at Osaka, Miako and Jedo, namely, five kobangs a 
 day, without any further recompense. The reason of our being 
 kept so cheap, as to victuals and lodging, is because this sum was 
 agreed on with our landlords a long while ago, when our train 
 was not yet so bulky as it now is*.* It is a custom in this coun- 
 try, which we likewise observe, that guests, before they quit the 
 inn, order their servants to sweep the room they lodged in, not to 
 leave any dirt, or ungrateful dust, behind them. 
 
 " From this reasonable behavior of the landlords, the reader may 
 judge of the civility of the whole nation in general, always except- 
 ing our own officers and servants. I must own that, in the visits 
 we made or received in our journey, we found the same to be 
 greater than could be expected from the most civilized nations. 
 The behavior of the Japanese, from the meanest countryman up to 
 the greatest prince or lord, is such that the whole empire might be 
 sailed a school of civility and good manners. They have so much 
 sense and innate curiosity, that, if they were not absolutely denied a 
 free and open conversation and correspondence with foreigners, they 
 would receive them with the utmost kindness and pleasure. In 
 some towns and villages only we took notice that the young boys. 
 who are childish all over the world, would run after us, calling us 
 names, and cracking some malicious jests or other, levelled at the 
 Chinese, whom they take us to be. One 0/ the most common, and 
 not much different from a like sort of a compliment which is com- 
 
 * The total expense of the entire journey ,'includiug the presents to the em- 
 peror and others, is estimated by Kampfer at twenty thousand rix dollars, 
 equivalent to about the same number of our dollars. 
 
334 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690— 1692. 
 
 monly made to Jews in Germany, is Toosin bay bay ? which, in 
 broken Chinese, signifies, Chinese, have ye nothing to truck? 
 
 " It may not be amiss to observe, that it is not an indifferent 
 matter to travellers in this country what day they .set out on their 
 journey ; for they must choose for their departure a fortunate day, 
 for which purpose they make use of a particular table, printed in 
 all their road-books, which they say hath been observed to hold 
 true by a continued experience of many ages, and wherein are set 
 down all the unfortunate days of every month. However, the most 
 sensible of the Japanese have but little regard for this superstitious 
 table, which is more credited by the common people, the mountain 
 priests and monks. 
 
 " To give the more authority to this table, they say that it was 
 invented by the astrologer Seimei, a man of great quality and very 
 eminent in his art. King Abino Tassima was his father, and a 
 fox his mother, to whom Abino Tassima was married upon the fol- 
 lowing occasion. He once happened with a servant of his to be in 
 the temple of Inari, who is the god and protector of the foxes. 
 Meanwhile some courtiers were hunting the fox without doors, in 
 order to make use of the lungs for the preparation of a certain 
 medicine. It happened upon this that a young fox, pursued by the 
 hunters, fled into the temple, which stood open, and took shelter in 
 the very bosom of Tassima. The king, unwilling to deliver up the 
 poor creature to the unmerciful hunters, was forced to defend him- 
 self and his fox, and to repel force by force, wherein he behaved 
 himself with so much bravery and success that, having defeated the 
 hunters, he set the fox at liberty. The hunters, ashamed and highly 
 offended at the courageous behavior of the king, seized, in the 
 height of their resentment, an opportunity which offered to kill his 
 royal father. Tassima mustered up all his courage and prudence 
 to revenge his father's death, and with so much success that he 
 killed the traitors with his own hands. The fox, to return his grat- 
 itude, appeared to him, after the victory which he obtained over 
 the murderers of his father, in the shape of a lady of incomparable 
 beauty, and so fired his breast with love that he took her to his 
 wife. It was by her he had this son, who was endowed with divine 
 wisdom, and the precious gift of prognosticating and foretelling 
 things to come. Nor did he know that his wife had been that very 
 
SEIMEI THE ASTROLOGER. 335 
 
 fox whose life he saved with so much courage in the temple of 
 Inari, till, soon after, her tail and other parts beginning to grow, 
 she resumed by degrees her former shape.* 
 
 " Seimei not only calculated the above table by the knowledge he 
 had acquired of the motion and influence of the stars, but, as he 
 was at the same time a perfect master of the cabalistic sciences, he 
 found out certain words which he brought together into an Uta, or 
 verse, the repetition of which is believed to have the infallible virtue 
 of keeping off all those misfortunes, which, upon the days deter- 
 mined in the table to be unfortunate, would otherwise befall travel- 
 lers, — this verse being for the use and satisfaction of poor ordinary 
 servants, who have not leisure to accommodate themselves to the 
 table, but must go when and wherever they are sent by their mas- 
 ters." 
 
 * The fox is regarded by the Japanese as a sort of divinity, though, accord- 
 ing to Siebold, they seem in doubt whether to reckon it a god or devil. If a 
 Japanese is placed in circumstances of doubt or difficulty, he sets out a platter 
 of rice and beans as a sacrifice to hii us : and if the next day any of it is gone, 
 that is regarded as a favorable omen. Wonderful stories (equal to any of our 
 spirit-rapping miracles) are told of the doings of these foxes. Titsingh gives 
 the following by way of specimen : The grandfather of his friend, the imperial 
 treasurer of Nagasaki, and who had in his time filled the same office, despatched 
 one day a courier to Jedo with very important letters for the councillors of 
 state. A few days after he discovered that one of the most important of the 
 letters had been accidentally left out of the package — a forgetfulness which 
 exposed him to great disgrace. In his despair he recurred to his fox and 
 offered him a sacrifice. The next morning he saw, to his great satisfaction, 
 that some of it had been eaten ; after which, upon going into his cabinet, 
 the letter which he had forgotten to send was nowhere to be found. This 
 caused him great uneasiness, till he received a message from his agent at 
 Jedo, who informed him that, upon opening the box which contained the 
 despatches, the lock of it appeared to have been forced by a letter pressed 
 in between the box and its cover from without — the very same letter, as it 
 proved, left behind at Nagasaki. The more intelligent, says Titsingh, 
 laugh at this superstition, but the great body of the people have firm faith 
 in it. There are in Japan, according to Siebold, two species of foxes, very 
 much tike the ordinary ones of Europe and America, and, from the immu- 
 nity which they enjoy, great nuisances. The white fox, of which the skin is 
 much prized, is found only in the Kurule Islands. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 FROM NAGASAKI TO KOKURA. SIMONOSEKI. — WATER JOURNEY TO OSAKA. 
 
 ■ — DESCRIPTION OP THAT CITY. ITS CASTLE. — INTERVIEW WITH THE 
 
 GOVERNORS. FROM OSAKA TO MIAKO. JODO AND ITS CASTLE. PUSI- 
 
 MI. ENTRANCE INTO MIAKO. VISIT TO THE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE 
 
 GOVERNORS. DESCRIPTION OF MIAKO. PALACE OF THE DAIRI. CASTLE. 
 
 MANUFACTURES AND TRADE. — AUTHORITY OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE. • — 
 
 POLICE. ■ — CRIMES. 
 
 At coming out of Nagasaki, on his first journey to court (Tues- 
 day, February 13, 1691), Kampfer noticed the idol Dsisos, the god 
 of the roads and protector of travellers, hewn out of the rock in 
 nine different places. At the next village stood another of the 
 same sort, about three feet in height, on a stone pillar twice as 
 high, and adorned with flowers. Two other smaller stone pillars, 
 hollow at top, stood before the idol, upon which were placed 
 lamps, for travellers to light in its honor ; and at some distance 
 stood a basin of water, in which to wash the hands before lighting 
 the lamps. 
 
 The first twelve miles' travelling, which was very steep and 
 mountainous, brought the company to the shores of the bay of 
 Omura, which they found too shallow for vessels of size; but by 
 crossing it in boats, furnished by the prince of Omura, each rowed 
 by fourteen watermen, they saryed a distance of ten miles or more. 
 The distance across was thirty miles. The town of Omura was 
 seen on the right at the head of the bay, and beyond it a smoking 
 mountain. The shells of this bay were reporteol to yield pearls.* 
 
 * Of these pearls Kampfer says, in another place, that they are found 
 almost everywhere about Kiusiu in oysters and several other sea shells. 
 Everybody is at liberty to fish for them. Formerly the natives had little 
 or no value for them till they were sought for by the Chinese. The Japanese 
 pretend, as to one particular kind, that when put into a box full of a 
 
337 
 
 The second day (Wednesday, February 14) they passed an old 
 camphor-tree, estimated to be thirty-six feet in circumference, and 
 hollow within* At Swot a, where they dined, a seaport on the 
 gulf of Simabara, was a manufactory of large earthen pots, used by 
 vessels as water-casks, and also of china ware, made of a whitish 
 fat clay, abundant in that neighborhood. The same day they vis- 
 ited a hot spring, much frequented for its medicinal effects, and pro- 
 vided with accommodations for bathing. There are several others 
 in the neighborhood.! 
 
 Sa?iga, the capital of the province of Figen, through which they 
 passed the next day (Thursday, February 15), without stopping, 
 was found to be a considerable place, situated not far from the 
 western border of the province, near the head of the bay of Sima- 
 bara. " The city," says Kampfer, " is very large, but extends more 
 in length than in breadth. It is exceedingly populous. Both 
 going in and coming out we found strong guards at the gates. It 
 is enclosed with walls, but more for state than defence. The prince 
 )r petty king of this province resides here in a large castle, which 
 commands the city. The streets are large, with streams of water 
 flowing through them. The houses are but sorry and low, and in 
 the chief streets fitted up for manufactures and shopkeepers. The 
 inhabitants are very short, but well shaped, particularly the women, 
 who are handsomer, I think, than in any other Asiatic country, 
 but so much painted that one would be apt to take them for wax 
 
 peculiar sort of complexion-powder made of another shell, one or two young 
 pearls will grow out at the sides, and when they come to maturity, as they 
 do in two or three years, will drop off ; but Kampfer, having never seen this 
 phenomenon, is not willing to vouch for its reality. 
 
 * The same tree Kampfer found on his return (May 6) in full blossom, 
 and a very beautiful sight. It was noticed as still standing in 1826, by Sie- 
 bold, who found it by measurement to be fifty feet in circumference. 
 
 t Caron also speaks of these springs, some of which he describes as inter- 
 mittent. Some are boiling hot, and their waters had been used, as we 
 have seen, in the torture of the Catholics. They are all found in a volcanic 
 mountain, having several craters which eject black sand and smoke. In the 
 interior of the province of Figo, on the opposite shore of the gulf of Sima 
 bara, is another volcano. The province of Satsuma is entirely volcanic, and 
 off its southern extremity is an island that burns incessantly. — Klaproth, 
 from Japanese authorities, Asiatic Journal, vol. xxx. 
 
 29 
 
338 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 figures rather than living creatures. Many were noticed who scorned 
 little more than girls, yet evidently the mothers of several children. 
 These women of Figen have the reputation of being the handsomest 
 in Japan, next to those of Miako. This province, though less 
 wealthy than that of Satsuma, is reputed to be about the most fer- 
 tile in all Japan, being particularly famous for its rice, of which it 
 produces ten different sorts or qualities, one of which is reserved for 
 the special use of the emperor. The rice-fields were observed 
 to be bordered with tea-shrubs about six feet high ; but as 
 they were stripped of their leaves they made but a naked and sorry 
 appearance. 
 
 In the afternoon our travellers passed into the province of Tsi- 
 cugo, and having traversed a small but very pleasant wood of firs, 
 — a rare sight in the flat parts of the country, — they saw at a dis- 
 tance the castle of Kurume, the residence of the prince of the prov- 
 ince .* Friday, February 16, mountains were encountered, which they 
 passed in kangos, as the road was too steep for horseback riding. 
 This country, forming a part of the province of Chichugen, struck 
 Kampfer as not unlike some mountainous and woody parts of Ger- 
 many, but no cattle were seen grazing, except a few cows and 
 horses for carriage and ploughing. The people were less handsome 
 than those of Figen, but extremely civil. 
 
 The next day (February 17), after passing, in the afternoon, 
 some coal-mines, whence the neighborhood was supplied with fuel, 
 they reached Kokura, capital of the province of Buigen, once a 
 large town, but now much decayed. It had a large castle of free- 
 stone, with a few cannon and a tower of six stories, the usual sign 
 of princely residences. A river passed through the town, crossed 
 by a bridge near two hundred yards long, but it was too shallow to 
 admit vessels of any size. At least one hundred small boats were 
 drawn up on the banks. On leaving their inn where they had 
 stopped to dine, the Dutch found the square in front of it> as well 
 as the bridge, crowded with upwards of a thousand spectators, 
 
 * On Kampfer's second journey to Jedo (1692), the second night was 
 passed at Kurume, which they reached by crossing the bay of Simabara ia 
 boats, thus leaving the principality of Omura and the city of Sanga on 
 their left. The next day at noon they struck into the road followed on the 
 first journey. 
 
OSAKA. 3e% 
 
 chiefly ordinary people, who had collected to see them, and who 
 knelt in profound silence, without motion or noise. The distance of 
 this place from Nagasaki was reckoned at fifty-five Japanese miles, 
 and had consumed five days. 
 
 Embarking in boats, the Dutch travellers crossed the strait which 
 separates Ximo from Nipon, narrower here than anywhere else, 
 less than three miles wide, though the town of Simorioseki, which 
 gives its name to the strait, being situated at the bottom of an 
 inlet, is near twelve miles from Kokura. This town, in the prov- 
 ince of Naugato, consisted of four or five hundred houses, built 
 chiefly on both sides of one long street, with a few smaller ones ter- 
 minating in it. It is full of shops for selling provisions and stores 
 to the ships, which daily put in for shelter or supplies, and of which 
 not less than two hundred were seen at anchor. It also had a tem- 
 ple to Amida, built to appease the ghost of a young prince of the 
 family of Feiji, so celebrated in the legendary annals of the Japan- 
 ese, whose nurse, with the boy in her arms, is said to have thrown 
 herself headlong into the strait to avoid capture by his father's 
 enemies, at the time of the ruin of that family. 
 
 The voyage from Simonoseki to Osaka was reckoned at one hun- 
 dred and thirty-four Japanese water-miles, and was made in six 
 days, the vessel coming to anchor every night in good harbors, with 
 which the coast abounds. This voyage lay first through the strait 
 between Ximo and Nipon, and then through the strait or sea be- 
 tween Nipon and Sikokf, which was full of islands, some cultivated, 
 others mere rocks. On the main land on either side snow-covered 
 mountains were visible. The barge could proceed no further than 
 Fiogo, a city of the province Setz, nearly as large as Nagasaki. 
 Here the company embarked in small boats for Osaka. As they 
 passed along they saw at a distance the imperial city of Sakai, 
 three or four Japanese miles south from Osaka. The description 
 of Osaka, and of the journey thence to Miako, is thus given by 
 Kaiupfer : 
 
 " Osaka, one of the five imperial cities, is agreeably seated in the 
 province of Setz, in a fruitful plain, and on the banks of a naviga- 
 ble river. At the east end is a strong castle ; and at the western 
 end, two strong, stately guard-houses, which separate it from ita 
 suburbs. Its length from these suburbs to the above-mentioned 
 
340 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 castle is between three and four thousand yards. Its brea 1th is 
 somewhat less. The riven Jodogawa runs on the north side, and 
 below the city falls into the sea. This river rises a day and a half's 
 journey to the north-east, out of a midland lake in the province of 
 Umi, which, according to Japanese histories, arose in one night, 
 that spot which it now fills being sunk in a violent earthquake. 
 Commg out of this lake, it runs by the small towns Udsi and Jodo, 
 from which latter it borrows its name, and so continues down to 
 Osaka. About a mile before it comes to this city, it sends off one 
 of its arms straight to the sea. This want, if any, is supplied by 
 two other rivers, both which flow into it just above t&e city, on the 
 north side of the castle, where there are stately bridges over them. 
 The united stream having washed one third of the city, part of its 
 waters are conveyed through a broad canal to supply the south 
 part, which is also the larger, and that where the richest inhab- 
 itants live. For this purpose several smaller channels cut from the 
 large one, pass through some of the chief streets, deep enough to be 
 navigable for small boats, which bring goods to the merchant's 
 doors — though some are muddy, and not too clean, for want of a 
 sufficient quantity and run of water. Upwards of an hundred bridges, 
 many extraordinarily beautiful, are built over them. 
 
 " A little below the coming out of the above-mentioned canal 
 another arm arises on the north side of the great stream, which is 
 shallow and not navigable, but runs down westward, with great 
 rapidity, till it loses itself in the sea. The middle and great stream 
 still continues its course through the city, at the lower end whereof 
 it turns westward, and having supplied the suburbs and villages 
 which lie without the city, by many lateral branches, at last loses 
 itself in the sea through several mouths. This river is narrow, 
 indeed, but deep and navigable. From its mouth up as far as 
 Osaka, and higher, there are seldom less than a thousand boats 
 going up and down, some with merchants, others with the princes 
 and lords who live to the west, on their way to and from Jedo. 
 The banks are raised on both sides into ten or more steps, coarsely 
 hewn of freestone, so that they look like one continued stairs, and 
 one may land wherever he pleases. Stately bridges are laid, over 
 the river at every three or four hundred paces' distance. They are 
 built of cedar wood, and are railed on both sides, some of the rails 
 
OSAKA. 34l 
 
 being adorned at top with brass buttons. I counted in all ten such 
 bridges, three whereof were particularly remarkable, because 01 
 their length, being laid over the great arm of the river, where it 
 is broadest. 
 
 "The streets, in the main, are narrow but regular, cutting 
 each other at right angles. From this regularity, however, we 
 must except that part of the city which lies towards the sea, because 
 she streets there run along the several branches of the river. The 
 streets are very neat, though not paved. However, for the conven- 
 iency of walking, there is a small pavement of square stones along 
 the houses on each side of the street. At the end of every street 
 are strong gates, which are shut at night, when nobody is suffered 
 to pass from one street to another without special leave and a 
 passport from the Ottona, or street officer. There is also in 
 every street a place railed in, where they keep all the necessary 
 instruments in case of fire. Not far from it is a covered well, foi 
 the same purpose. The houses are, according to the custom of the 
 country, not above two stories high, each story of nine or twelve 
 feet. They are built of wood, lime and clay. The front offers to 
 the spectator's eye the door, and a shop where the merchants sell 
 their goods, or else an open room where artificers, openly and in 
 everybody's sight, exercise their trade. From the upper end of the 
 shop or room hangs down a piece of black cloth, partly for orna- 
 ment, partly to defend them in some measure from the wind and 
 weather. At the same place hang some fine patterns of what is 
 sold in the shop. The roof is flat, and in good houses covered with 
 black tiles laid in lime. The roofs of ordinary houses are covered 
 only with shavings of wood. Within doors all the houses are kept 
 clean and neat to admiration. The stair-cases, rails and all the 
 wainscotting, are varnished. The floors are covered with neat mats. 
 The rooms are separated from each. other by screens, upon removal 
 }f which several small rooms mj(y be enlarged into one, or the con- 
 trary done if needful. The walls are hung with shining paper, curi- 
 ously painted with gold and silver flowers. The upper part of the 
 wall, for some inches down from the ceiling, is commonly left empty, 
 and only clayed with an orange-colored clay, which is dug up about 
 this city, and is, because of its beautiful color, exported into othei 
 provinces. The mats> doors and screens, are all of the same size, 
 29* 
 
342 JAPAN.- -A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 six Japanese feet long and three broad. The houses themselves, and 
 their several rooms, are built proportionably according to a certain 
 number of mats, more or less. There is commonly a curious garden 
 behind the house, such as I have described elsewhere. Behind the 
 garden is the bathing-stove, and sometimes a vault, or rather a small 
 room, with strong walls of clay and lime, to preserve, in case of 
 fire, the richest household goods and furniture. 
 
 " Osaka is extremely populous, and, if we believe what the boast- 
 ing Japanese tell us, can raise an army of eighty thousand men 
 from, among its inhabitants. It is the best trading town in Japan, 
 being extraordinarily well situated for carrying on a commerce both 
 by land and water. This is the reason why it is so well inhabited 
 by rich merchants, artificers and manufacturers. Provisions are 
 cheap, notwithstanding the city is so well peopled. Whatever tends 
 to promote luxury, and to gratify all sensual pleasures, may be had 
 at as easy a rate here as anywhere, and for this reason the Jap- 
 anese call Osaka the universal theatre of pleasures and diversions. 
 Plays are to be seen daily, both in public and in private houses. 
 Mountebanks, jugglers, who can show some artful tricks, and all the 
 raree-show people who have either some uncommon, or monstrous 
 animal to exhibit, or animals taught to play tricks, resort thither 
 from all parts of the empire, being sure to get a better penny here 
 than anywhere else* Hence it is no wonder that numbers of 
 strangers and travellers daily resort thither, chiefly rich people, as 
 to a place where they can spend their time and money with much 
 greater satisfaction than perhaps anywhere else in the empire. The 
 western princes and lords on this side Osaka all have houses in this 
 city, and people to attend them in their passage through, and yet 
 they are not permitted to stay longer than a night, besides that 
 
 * " Some years ago," says Kampfer, " our East India Company sent over 
 from Batavia a Casuar (a large East India bird, who would swallow stones 
 and hot coals) , as a present to the emperor. This bird having had the ill 
 luck not to please our rigid censors, the governors of Nagasaki, and we hav- 
 ing thereupon been ordered to send him back to Batavia, a rich Japanese 
 assured us that if he could have obtained leave to buy him, he would have 
 willingly given a thousand taels for him, as being sure within a year's time 
 to get double that money only by showing him at Osaka.'''' The mermaids 
 exhibited in Europe and America, to the great profit of enterprising show 
 men, have been of Japanese manufacture. 
 
GOVERNOR OF OSAKA. 343 
 
 upon their departure they are coliged to follow a road entirely out 
 of sight of the castle. 
 
 " The water which is drank at Osaka tastes a little brackish ; 
 but in lieu thereof they have the best saki in the empire, which is 
 brewed in great quantities in the neighboring village, Tenusii, and 
 from thence exported into most other provinces, nay, by the Dutch 
 and Chinese out of the country. 
 
 " On the east side of the city, in a large plain, lies the famous 
 castle built by Taiko-Sama. Going up to Miako we pass by it. 
 It is square, about an hour's walking in circumference, and strongly 
 fortified with round bastions, according to the military architecture 
 of the country. After the castle of Figo, it hath not its superior 
 in extent, magnificence and strength, throughout the whole empire. 
 On the north side it is defended by the river Jodogawa, which 
 washes its walls. On the east side its walls are washed by a trib- 
 utary river, on the opposite bank of which lies a great garden be- 
 longing to the castle. The south and west sides border upon the 
 city. The moles, or buttresses, which support the outward wall, 
 are of an uncommon bigness, I believe at least forty-two feet thick. 
 They are built to support a high, strong brick wall, lined with 
 free-stone, which at its upper end is planted with a row of firs or 
 cedars. 
 
 " The day after our arrival (Sunday, Feb. 25) we were admitted 
 to an audience of the governor of the city, to which we were carried 
 in kangos, attended by our whole train of interpreters and other 
 officers. It is half an hour's walking from our inn to the governor's 
 palace, which lies at the end of the city in a square opposite the 
 castle. Just before the house we stepped out of our kangos, 
 and put on each a silk cloak, which is reckoned equal to the gar 
 ment of ceremony which the Japanese wear on these occasions. 
 Through a passage thirty paces long we came into the hall, or 
 guard-house, where we were received by two of the governor's gen- 
 tlemen, who very civilly desired us to sit down. Four soldiers stood 
 upon duty on our left as we came in, and next to them we found 
 eight other officers of the governor's court, all sitting upon their 
 knees and ankle:-. The wall on our right was hung with arms, 
 ranged in a pr per order, fifteen halberds on one side, twenty lances 
 in the middle, ind nineteen pikes on the other; the latter were 
 
344 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 adorned at the upper end with fringes. Hence we were conducted 
 by two of the governor's secretaries through four rooms (which, 
 however, upon removing the screens, might have been enlarged 
 into one) into the hall of audience. I took notice, as we came by, 
 that the walls were hung and adorned with bows, with sabres and 
 scymetars, as also with some fire-arms, kept in rich black varnished 
 cases. 
 
 " In the hall of audience, where there were seven of the govern- 
 or's gentlemen sitting, the two secretaries sat down at three paces' 
 distance from us, and treated us with tea, carrying on a very civil 
 conversation with us till the governor appeared, as he soon did, 
 with two of his sons, one seventeen, the other eighteen years of age, 
 and sat down at ten paces' distance in another room, which was laid 
 open towards the hall of audience by removing three lattices, through 
 which he spoke to us. 
 
 " He seemed to be about forty years of age, middle-sized, strong, 
 active, of a manly countenance and broad-faced ; very civil in his 
 conversation, and speaking with a great deal of softness and mod- 
 esty. He was but meanly clad in black, and wore a gray garment 
 of ceremony over his dress. He wore, also, but one ordinary scym- 
 etar. His conversation turned chiefly upon the following points : 
 That the weather was now very cold ; that we had made a very 
 great journey ; that it was a singular favor to be admitted into the 
 emperor's presence ; that, of all nations in the world, only the 
 Dutch were allowed this honor. 
 
 " He promised us, that since the chief justice of Miako, whose 
 business it is to give us the necessary passports for our journey to 
 court, was not yet returned from Jedo, he would give us his own 
 passports, which would be full as valid, and that we might send for 
 them the next morning. He also assured us that he was very will- 
 ing to assist us with horses and whatever else we might stand in 
 need of for continuing our journey. 
 
 <( On our sides, we returned him thanks for his kind offers, and 
 desired that he would be pleased to accept of a small present, con- 
 sisting of some pieoes of silk stuffs, as an acknowledgment of our 
 gratitude. We also made some presents to the two secretaries or 
 stewards of his household ; and, having taken our leave, were by 
 them conducted back to the guard-house. Here we took our leave 
 
JODO AND FUSIMI. 345 
 
 also of them, and returned through the above-mentioned passage 
 back to our kangos. Our interpreters permitted us to walk a little 
 way, which gave us an opportunity to view the outside of the above- 
 described famous castle. We then entered our kangos and were 
 carried back through another long street to our inn. 
 
 " Wednesday, Feb. 28, we set out by break of day on our jour- 
 ney to Miako, because we intended to reach that place the same 
 day, it being but thirteen Japanese miles, or a good day's journey, 
 distant from Osaka, out of which we came by the Kiobas, or bridge 
 to Miako, which crosses the river just below the castle. We then 
 travelled about a mile through muddy rice-fields, riding along a low 
 dike raised on the banks of the river Jodo-gawa, which we had on 
 our left. Multitudes of Tsadamia trees, which grow as tall in this 
 country as oaks do with us, were planted along it. It had then no 
 leaves, because of the winter season, but its branches hung full of a 
 yellow fruit, out of which the natives prepare an oil. The country 
 hereabouts is extraordinary well inhabited, and the many villages 
 along the road are so near each other that there wants little towards 
 making it one continued street from Osaka to Miako. 
 
 " The small but famous city, Jodo, is entirely enclosed with water, 
 and hath besides several canals cut through the town, all derived 
 from the arms of the river which encompasses it. The suburbs con- 
 sist of one long street, across which we rode to a stately wooden 
 bridge, called Jodobas, four hundred paces long, and supported by 
 forty arches, to which answer so many ballisters, adorned at the 
 upper end with brass buttons. At the end of this bridge is a single 
 well-guarded gate, through which we entered the city. The city 
 itself is very pleasant and agreeably situated, and hath very good 
 houses, though but few streets, which cut each other at right angles, 
 running some south, some east. Abundance of artificers and handi- 
 craftsmen live at Jodo. On the west side lies the castle, built of 
 brick, in the middle of the river, with stately towers several stories 
 high at each corner, and in the middle of its walls. Coming out of 
 Jodo, we again passed over a bridge two hundred paces long, sup- 
 ported by twenty arches, which brought us into a suburb, at the 
 end of which was a strong guard-house. 
 
 11 After about two hours' riding we came, at two in the afternoon, 
 k» Fusbni. This is a ^mall, open town, or rather village, of a few 
 
346 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—1692. 
 
 streets, of which, the middle and chief reaches as far as Miako; and ia 
 contiguous to the streets of that capital, insomuch that Fusimi might 
 be called the suburbs of Miako, the rather since this last city is not 
 at all enclosed with walls. It was to-day Tsitats with the Japanese, 
 that is, the first day of the month, which they keep as a Sunday or 
 holiday, visiting the temples, walking into the fields, and following 
 all manner of diversions. Accordingly we found this street, along 
 which we rode for full four hours before we got to our inn, crowded 
 with multitudes of the inhabitants of Miako, walking out of the city 
 to take the air, and to visit the neighboring temples. Particularly 
 the women were all on this occasion richly apparelled in variously- 
 colored gowns, wearing a purple-colored silk about the forehead, 
 and large straw hats to defend themselves from the heat of the sun. 
 We likewise met some particular sorts of beggars, comically clad, 
 and some masked in a very ridiculous manner. Not a few walked 
 upon iron stilts ; others carried large pots with green trees upon their 
 heads ; some were singing, some whistling, some fluting, others beat- 
 ing of bells. All along the street we saw multitudes of open shops, 
 jugglers and players diverting the crowd. 
 
 " The temples which we had on our right as we went up, built in 
 the ascent of the neighboring green hills, were illuminated with 
 many lamps, and the priests, beating some bells with iron hammers; 
 made such a noise as could be heard at a considerable distance. I 
 took notice of a large, white dog, perhaps made of plaster, which 
 stood upon an altar on our left, in a neatly-adorned chapel or small 
 temple, which was consecrated to the Patron of the dogs. We 
 reached our inn at Miako at six in the evening, and were forthwith 
 carried up one pair of stairs into our apartments, which in some 
 measure, I thought, might be compared to the Westphalian smoking 
 rooms, wherein they smoke their beef and bacon. 
 
 "We had travelled to-day through a very fruitful country, 
 mostly through rice-fields, wherein we saw great flocks of wild 
 ducks, if they deserve to* be. so called, being so very tame that no 
 travelling company- approaching will fright them away. We took 
 notice also of several large, white herons, some swans, and some 
 few storks, looking for their food in the morassy fields. We like- 
 wise saw the peasants ploughing with black oxen, which seemed to 
 be lean, poor beasts, but are said to work well. 
 
RECEPTIONS AT MIAKO. 347 
 
 " Feb. 29, early in the morning, we sent the presents for the 
 chief justice and the governors to their palaces, laid, according to 
 the country fashion, upon particular small tables made of fir, and 
 kept for no other use but this. We followed soon after, about ten 
 in the forenoon, in kangos. Their palaces were at the west end of 
 the city, opposite the castle of the Dairi. We were conducted 
 through a court-yard, twenty paces broad, into the hall or fore-room 
 of the house, which is called Ban, or the chief guard, and is the 
 rendezvous of numbers of clerks, inspectors, &c. Hence we were 
 taken, through two other rooms, into a third, where they desired us 
 to sit down. Soon after came in his lordship's steward, an old 
 gentleman who seemed upwards of sixty years of age, clad in a 
 gray or ash-colored honor-gown, who seated himself at about four 
 paces from us, in order to receive, in his master's name, both our 
 compliments and presents, which stood in the same room, laid out 
 in a becoming order. They consisted of a flask of Tent wine, be- 
 sides twenty pieces of silk, woollen and linen stuffs. The steward 
 having very civilly returned us thanks for our presents, boxes with 
 tobacco and pipes and proper utensils for smoking were set before 
 us, and a dish of tea was presented to each of us by a servant, at 
 three different times, the steward and the chief gentlemen pressing 
 us to drink. ; Having staid about a quarter of an hour, we took our 
 leave, and were conducted by the steward himself to the door of 
 their room, and thence by other officers back to the gate. 
 
 " This first visit being over, we walked thence on foot to the 
 palace of the commanding governor, who was but lately arrived 
 from Jedo. Some sentinels stood upon duty at the gate, and in 
 the ban, or hall, we found very near fifty people, besides some 
 young boys, neatly clad, all sitting in very good order. Through 
 this hall we were conducted into a side apartment, where we were 
 civilh' received by the two secretaries, both elderly men, and were 
 treated with tea, sugar, &c. ; receiving, also, repeated assurances 
 that we should be soon admitted into the governor's presence. 
 
 " Having staid full half an hour in this room, we were conducted 
 into another, where, after a little while, the lattices of two screens 
 being suddenly opened just over against us, the governor appeared, 
 sitting at fourteen paces distant. He wore, as usual, a garment of 
 ceremony over his black dress. He seemed to be about thirty-six 
 
348 JAPAN. — A. D. 1690—16*2. 
 
 years of age, of a strong, lusty constitution, and showed in his 
 countenance and whole behavior a good deal of pride and vanity. 
 After a short conversation, we desired that he would be pleased to 
 accept of our small present, consisting of twelve pieces of stuffs, 
 which lay upon a table, or salver, in the manner above described. 
 He thereupon bowed a little, to return us thanks, and, putting him- 
 self in a rising posture, the two lattices were ] et down forthwith, in 
 a very comical manner. But we were desired to stay a little while 
 longer, that the ladies — who were in a neighboring room, behind 
 a paper screen, pierced with holes — might have an opportunity of 
 contemplating us and our foreign dress. Our president was de- 
 sired to show them his hat, sword, watch, and several other things 
 
 711 o 
 
 he had about him, as also to take off his cloak, that they might 
 have a full view of his dress, both before and behind. Having 
 staid about an hour in the house of this governor, we were con- 
 ducted by the two secretaries back to the hall, or chief guard, and 
 thence by two inferior officers into the yard. 
 
 " It being fair weather, we resolved to walk on foot to the house 
 of the other governor, some hundred paces distant. We were re- 
 ceived there much after the manner above described. After we 
 had been treated in the ban with tea and tobacco, as usual, we 
 were conducted, through several rooms, into the hall of audience, 
 which was richly furnished, and, amongst other things, adorned 
 with a cabinet filled with bows and arrows, small fire-arms, guns 
 and pistols, kept in black varnished cases. These, and other arms, 
 we took notice, were hung up in several other rooms through which 
 we passed, much after the same manner as in the governor's house 
 at Osaka. On one side the hall we took notice of two screens, 
 pierced with holes, behind which sat some women, whom the curi- 
 osity of seeing people from so remote a part of the world had drawn 
 thither. We had scarce sat down, when the governor appeared, 
 and sat himself down at ten paces from us. He was clad in black, 
 as usual, with a garment of ceremony. He was a gray man, 
 almost sixty years of age, but of a good complexion, and very 
 handsome. He bade us welcome, showed in his whole behavior a 
 great deal of civility, and received our presents kindly, and with 
 seeming great satisfaction. Our chief interpreter took this oppor- 
 tunity to make the governor, as his old acquaintance, some private 
 
DESCRIPTION OF MIAKO. 349 
 
 presents in his own name, consisting of some European glasses, 
 and, in the mean time, to beg a favor for his deputy interpreter's 
 son. Having taken our leave, we returned to our kangos, and 
 were carried home to our inn, where we arrived at one in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 " Kio, or Miako, signifies in Japanese, a city. [Klaproth says, 
 great temple or palace.] It lies in the province Jamatto, in a large 
 plain, and is, from north to south, three English miles long, and two 
 broad from east to west, surrounded with pleasant green hills and 
 mountains, from which arise numbers of small rivers and agreeable 
 springs. The city comes nearest the. mountains on the east side, 
 where there are numerous temples, monasteries, chapels, and other 
 religious buildings, standing in the ascent. Three shallow rivers 
 enter, or run by, it on that side. The chief and largest comes out 
 of the Lake Oitz; the other two from the neighboring moun- 
 tains. They come together about the middle of the city, where the 
 united stream is crossed by a large bridge, two hundred paces long. 
 The Dairi, with his family and court, resides on the north side of 
 the city, in a particular part or ward, consisting of twelve or thir 
 teen streets, separated from the rest by walls and ditches. In the 
 western part of the town is a strong castle of free-stone, built by 
 one of the hereditary emperors, for the security of his person 
 during the civil wars. At present it serves to lodge the Kubo, or 
 actual monarch, when he comes to visit the Dairi. It is upwards 
 of a thousand feet long where longest; a deep ditch, filled with 
 water, and walled in, surrounds it, and is enclosed itself by a broad 
 empty space, or dry ditch. In the middle of this castle there is, 
 as usual, a square tower, several stories high. In the ditch are 
 kept a particular sort of delicious carps, some of which were pre- 
 sented this evening to our interpreter. A small garrison guards 
 the castle, under the command of a captain. 
 
 " The streets of Miako are narrow, but all regular, running some 
 south, some east. Being "at one end of a great street, it is impos 
 sible to reach the other with the eye, because of their extraordinary 
 length, the dust, and the multitude of people. The houses aiti, 
 generally speaking, narrow, only two stories high, built of wood, 
 lime, and clay, according to the country fashion. 
 
 " Miako is the great magazine of all Japanese manufactures and 
 
350 JAPAN. — A. D. 1G90— 1692. 
 
 commodities, and the chief mercantile town in the empire. There 
 is scarce a house in this large capital where there is not something 
 made or sold. Here they refine copper, coin money, print books, 
 weave the richest stuffs, with gold and silver flowers. The best 
 and scarcest dyes, the most artful carvings, all sorts of musical 
 instruments, pictures, japanned cabinets, all sorts of things wrought 
 in gold and other metals, particularly in steel, as the best tempered 
 blades, and other arms, are made here in the utmost perfection, as 
 -are, also, the richest dresses, and after the best fashion, all sorts 
 of toys, puppets, moving their heads of themselves, and, in short, 
 there is nothing can be thought of but what may be found at Miako, 
 and nothing, though never so neatly wrought, can be imported 
 from abroad, but what some artist or other in this capital will un- 
 dertake to imitate it. Considering this, it is no wonder that the 
 manufactures of Miako are become so famous throughout the em- 
 pire as to be easily preferred to all others (though, perhaps, inferior 
 in some particulars), only because they have the name of being 
 made there. There are but few houses in all the chief streets 
 where there is not something to be sold, and, for my part, I could 
 not help admiring whence they can have customers enough for such 
 an immense quantity of goods. 'Tis true,. indeed, there is scarce 
 anybody passes through but what buys something or other of the 
 manufactures of this city, either for his own use, or for presents to 
 be made to his friends and relations. 
 
 The lord chief justice resides at Miako, a man of great power 
 and authority, as having the supreme command, under the emperor, 
 of all the bugios, governors, stewards, and other officers, who are 
 any ways concerned in the government of the imperial cities, crown 
 lands and tenements, in all the western provinces of the empire. 
 Even the western princes themselves must, in some measure, de- 
 pend on him, and have a great regard to his person as a mediator 
 and compounder of quarrels and difficulties that may arise between 
 them. Nobody is suffered to pass through Array and Fakone, two 
 of the most important passes, and, in a manner, the keys of the im- 
 perial capital and court, without a passport, signed by his hand. 
 
 " The political government and regulation of the streets is the 
 same at Miako as it is at Osaka and Nagasaki. The number of 
 inhabitants of Miako, in the year of our visit, will appear by the 
 
CENSUS OF MIAKO. 351 
 
 following Aratame* (exclusive, however, of those who live in the 
 castle and at the Dairi's court)." 
 
 Negi (persons attending the Sintos teinples), .... 9,003 
 
 Jamabo (mountain priests), . 6,073 
 
 Siuku (ecclesiastics of the Buddhist religion), . . . 37,093 
 Buddhist laymen, of four principal and eight inferior 
 
 sects or observances,! . . 477,557 
 
 Tira (Buddhist temples), 3,893 
 
 Mias (Sinto temples), 2,127 
 
 Sokokf Dai Mio Jasiki (palaces and houses of the 
 
 princes and lords of the empire), 137 
 
 Matz (streets), - 1,858 
 
 Ken (houses), . 138,979 
 
 Bas (bridges), 87 
 
 * The Aratame is a sort of an inquisition into the life and family of every 
 inhabitant, the number of his children and domestics, the sect he professes or 
 the temples he belongs to, made very punctually, once every year, in every 
 city and district, by commissioners appointed for this purpose. 
 
 t The -worshippers of Amida were the most numerous, amounting to 
 159,113. The other principal sects had, respectively, 99,728, 99,016, 
 54,586. Caron had noticed and mentioned this division into twelve sects, or 
 observances. He states, and other subsequent authors have repeated, that, 
 notwithstanding this division, they have no controversies or religious quar- 
 rels ; but this does not agree with the accounts of the Catholic missionaries. 
 Every resident of Miako, except the Sinto priests, and, perhaps, the house- 
 hold of the Dairi, would seem to belong to some Buddhist sect 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 LAK3 OITZ. MOUNT JESAN. JAPANESE LEGENDS. — A JAPANESE PATENS 
 
 MEDICINE. QUANO. — MIA, ARRAY. POLICY OP THE EMPERORS. 
 
 KAKEGAWA. A TOWN ON EIRE. SERUGA. KUNO. PASSAGE OF A 
 
 RAPID RIVER. FUSI-NO-JAMA, OR MOUNT FUSI. CROSSING THE PENINSULA 
 
 OF IDSU. SECOND SEARCHING PLACE. PURGATORY LAKE. ODAWARA. 
 
 — COAST OF THE BAY OF JEDO. A LIVE SAINT. CANAGAWA. SINA- 
 
 GAWA. JEDO. IMPERIAL CASTLES AND PALACE. 
 
 Kampfer and his company left Miako Friday, March 2d, and, 
 after a journey of eight or nine miles, during which they saw a 
 high mountain towards the south, covered with snow, they reached 
 Oitz, a town of a thousand houses, where they lodged. This town 
 lies at the south-western extremity of the large fresh-water lake of 
 the same name, already mentioned.* 
 
 On the south-eastern shore of this lake, which abounds with fish 
 and fowl, lies the famous mountain Jesan (by interpretation Fair- 
 hill), covered with Buddhist monasteries, and near it were seen 
 other mountains, covered with snow, and extending along the lake 
 shore. Shortly after leaving Oitz, the Jodogawa, one of the out- 
 lets of the lake, was crossed upon a bridge, supported at the extrem- 
 ities by stone columns, of which the following legend is told. These 
 columns were in old times possessed by an evil spirit, which very 
 much molested travellers, as well as the inhabitants of the village. 
 It happened one day that the famous saint and apostle, Kusi, 
 travelling that way, all the people of the neighborhood earnestly 
 entreated him to deliver them by his miraculous power from this 
 insufferable evil, and to cast this devil out of the columns. The 
 
 * According to Klaproth, following Japanese authorities, it is seventy-two 
 und one half English miles long, and twenty-two and one quarter at its 
 greatest breadth. 
 
DSUTSI JAMA. 35b 
 
 Japanese, a people superstitious to excess, expected that he would 
 use a good many prayers and ceremonies, but found, to their utmost 
 surprise, that he only took off the dirty cloth which he wore about 
 his waist, and tied it about the column. Perceiving how much 
 they were amazed, Kusi addressed them in these words : " Friends," 
 said he, u it is in vain you expect that I should make use of many 
 ceremonies. Ceremonies will never cast out devils ; faith must dc 
 it, and it is only by faith that I perform miracles." " A remark- 
 able saying," exclaims Kampfer, "in the mouth of a heathen 
 teacher ! " 
 
 Minoki, a village through which they next passed, was famous 
 for the sole manufacture of a medicine of great repute, found out by 
 a poor but pious man, to whom the god Jacusi, the protector of 
 physic and physicians, revealed in a dream the ingredients, which 
 are certain bitter herbs growing upon the neighboring mountains. 
 This story helped the sale of the medicine, by which the inven- 
 tor soon grew very rich, so that he was not only able to build a 
 fine house for himself, but also a small temple, opposite his shop, 
 and highly adorned, in honor of the god who had given him the 
 receipt, whose statue, richly gilt, was to be seen there, standing 
 on a Tarate flower, and with half a large cockle-shell over his 
 head. 
 
 The next day (Sunday, March 4) the Dutch travellers crossed the 
 Dsutsi Jama, a mountain ridge, so steep that its descent was like 
 that of a winding staircase cut out in the face of the precipice. 
 On this mountain were many temples, and in this neighborhood vast 
 crowds of pilgrims were encountered, bound to Isje, situate some 
 forty miles to the south. The travellers struck the sea-coast at 
 fokitz, a town of a thousand houses, whose inhabitants were partly 
 supported by fishing, and the next clay (Monday the 5th), after 
 about nine miles' travel, they entered the city of Quano, in the 
 province of Voari, situated at the head of a deep bay. It con- 
 sisted of three parts, like so many different towns. ' The first and 
 third parts were enclosed by high walls and ditches. The other 
 part was entirely surrounded by water, the country being flat and 
 full of rivers. The castle, washed on three sides by the sea, was 
 separated from the town by a deep ditch with draw-bridges. 
 
 From Quano they proceeded by water to Mia, some fifteen miles 
 30* 
 
354 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691. 
 
 distant. The head of the bay was very shallow, and the boats 
 were pushed through mud-banks. Mia, though not so large as 
 Quano, consisted of two thousand houses, with two spacious castles, 
 one of them for size and strength reckoned the third in Japan. 
 There were two temples, in one of which are preserved three, in 
 the other eight, miraculous swords, used by the race of demigods 
 who were the first inhabitants of Japan. 
 
 Tuesday, March 6th, the travellers dined at Okasaki, a town of 
 fifteen hundred houses, with a strong castle situate on the shores of 
 the same bay. The country travelled through was a fertile plain, 
 along the foot of a range of mountains, the shores of which, beyond 
 Okasaki, extended to the sea. 
 
 The next day (Wednesday, March 7) they passed through several 
 considerable places, of which Josida, with a castle and about a 
 thousand small houses, was the most considerable. Array, twelve 
 or fifteen miles distant, was a town of about four hundred houses, 
 situate not far from the sea, at the inland extremity of a harbor 
 called Suota, narrow at its entrance, but spreading out within. 
 Array was the seat of certain imperial commissioners appointed to 
 search the goods and baggage of all travellers, but particularly of 
 the princes of the empire, that no women nor arms might pass. 
 " This," says Kampfer, " is one of the political maxims which the 
 now reigning emperors have" found it necessary to practise in order 
 to secure # to themselves the peaceable possession of -the throne ; for 
 the wives and female children of all the princes of the empire are 
 kept at Jedo, as hostages of the fidelity of their husbands and 
 parents. And as to the exportation of arms, an effectual stop has 
 been put to ' that, lest, if exported in any considerable quantities, 
 some of those princes might take it into their heads to raise rebel- 
 lions against the government as now established." 
 
 The harbor of Suota was crossed in boats, on the other side of 
 which the road led through a flat country, rather thinly inhabited. 
 They slept that night at Famamatz, a town of several hundred 
 inferior houses^ with a large castle. The next day (Thursday, 
 March 8), travelling on through a beautiful plain, in the afternoon 
 they reached the town of Kakegawa ; as they were passing through 
 which, a fire broke out, occasioned by the boiling over of an oil 
 kettle. Perceiving only a thick cloud behind them, they thought a 
 
FUSI-NO-JAMA. oob 
 
 iStorm was coming on, but were soon involved in such a cloud of 
 smoke and heat as to be obliged to ride on at a gallop. Having 
 reached a little eminence, on looking back, the whole town seemed 
 on fire. Nothing appeared through the smoke and flames but the 
 upper part of the castle tower. They found, however, on their 
 return, some weeks after, that the damage was less than they had 
 expected, more than half the town having escaped. 
 
 It was necessary, shortly after, for the travellers to take kangos to 
 cross a steep mountain, descending from which they were obliged to 
 ford the river Ojingawa, proverbial throughout Japan for its force 
 and rapidity and the rolling stones in its bed, but just then at a 
 very low stage. The road thence to Simada* a small town where 
 they lodged, was close to the sea, but through a barren country, the 
 mountains approaching close to the shore. 
 
 The next day (Friday, March 9) brought them, most of the way 
 through a flat, well-cultivated country, to the city of Senega, capi- 
 tal of the province of that name. The streets, broad and regular, 
 crossed each other at right angles, and were full of well-furnished 
 shops. • Paper stuffs, curiously flowered, for hats, baskets, boxes, 
 &c, also various manufactures of split and twisted reeds, and all 
 sorts of lackered ware, were made here. There was also a mint here, 
 as well as at Miako and Jedo, where kobangs and itzebos were 
 coined. It had a castle of free-stone, well defended with ditches 
 and high walls. 
 
 A few miles from Seraga were kept certain war-junks for the 
 defence of the bay of Totomina; and just beyond, upon a high 
 mountain, stood the fortress of Kwio, or Kono, esteemed by the 
 Japanese impregnable. It was built to contain the imperial treas- 
 ures, but they had since been removed to Jedo. 
 
 In the course of the next day (Saturday, March 10) the road 
 turned inland, in order to cross the great river Fusigawa, which 
 enters into the head of the bay, taking its rise in the high, snowy 
 mountain Fusi-no-Jama. It was crossed in flat broacl-bottomed 
 boats, constructed of thin planks, so as on striking the rocks to 
 yield and slip over. The mountain Fusi, whence this river takes 
 
 * Though situated near the sea, and similar in name, this is not the Simoda, 
 one of the ports opened to the United States. That is further east and south 
 on the west coast of the peninsula of Idsu. 
 
356 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691. 
 
 its rise and name, towers in a conical form above all the surround- 
 ing hills, and is seen at a great distance. It is quite barren, no 
 plants growing on it. # It is ascended for the worship of the Jap- 
 anese god of the winds, to whom the Jamabo, or mountain priests, 
 are consecrated, and who frequently repeat the words Fusi Jama, 
 in discoursing or begging. It takes three days to ascend this moun- 
 tain; but the descent can be inade^so Kampfer was told, in three 
 hours, by the help of sledges of reeds or straw, tied about the waist, 
 by means 01 which one may glide down over the snow in winter 
 and the sand in summer, it being surprisingly smooth and even. 
 Japanese poets cannot find words, Kampfer tells us, nor Japanese 
 painters colors, in which to represent this mountain as they think 
 it deserves. 
 
 Our travellers kept on this day and the next (Sunday, March 
 11) through the mountainous country of Facone, which runs out 
 southward from the broad peninsula of Idsu. At a village, hemmed 
 in between a lake and a mountain, the lake itself surrounded in 
 every other direction by mountains not to be climbed, was a narrow 
 pass — another imperial searching-place, where all persons travel- 
 ling to, and especially from, Jedo, must submit to a rigorous exam 
 ination. Upon the shore of this lake were five small wooden chap- 
 els, and in each a priest seated, beating a gong and howling a 
 nimada. " All the Japanese foot-travellers of our retinue," says 
 Kampfer, " threw them some kasses into the chapel, and in return 
 received each a paper, which they carried, bareheaded, with great 
 respect, to the shore, in order to throw it into the lake, having first 
 tied a stone to it, that it might be sure to go to the bottom ; which 
 they believe, is the purgatory for children who die before seven 
 years of age. They are told so by their priests, who, for their com- 
 fort, assure them that as soon as the water washes ofF the names 
 and characters of the gods and saints, written upon the papers above 
 
 * Fusi-no-jama, in the prcmnce of Seruga, on the borders of Kiu, is an 
 enormous pyramid, generally covered with snow, detached from and south- 
 erly of the great central chain of Nipon. It is the largest and most noted 
 of the volcanoes of Japan. In the year 1707 there was an irruption from 
 it which covered all the neighborhood with masses of rock, red-hot sand and 
 ashes, which latter fell, even in Jedo, some inches deep. — Klaproth (from 
 lapanese authorities) in Asiatic Jownal, vol. xxxu. 
 
A LIVE SAINT. 357 
 
 mentioned, the children at the bottom feel great relief, if they do 
 not obtain a full and effectual redemption." This lake has but one 
 outlet, falling over the mountains in a cataract, and running clown 
 through a craggy and precipitous valley, along which the road is 
 carried on a very steep descent to the mouth of the river in the bay 
 of Jedo. Here, on a plain four miles in width, was found the 
 town of Odowara, containing about a thousand small houses, very 
 neatly built, and evidently inhabited by a better class of people ; 
 but the empty shops evinced no great activity of trade or manufac- 
 tures. The castle and residence of the prince, as well as the 
 temples, were on the north side, in the ascent of the mountains. 
 
 The next day (Monday, March 12), the road following the north- 
 west shore of the outer bay of Jedo crossed several very rapid 
 streams, till at length the mountains on their left disappeared, and 
 a broad plain spread out extending to Jedo. Off the shore was 
 seen the island of Kamokura, with high and rugged shores, but of 
 which the surface was flat and wooded. It was not above four 
 miles in circumference, and was used, like several other islands, as 
 a place of confinement for disgraced noblemen. There being no 
 landing-place, the boats that bring prisoners or provisions must be 
 hauled up and let down by a crane. After a time the road left 
 the shore, crossing a promontory which separates the outer from the 
 inner bay of Jedo ; but by sunset the shore of the inner bay was 
 struck. 
 
 The country now became exceedingly fruitful and populous, and 
 almost a continued row of towns and villages. In one of these 
 villages there lived in a monastery an old gray monk, four-score 
 years of age, and a native of Nagasaki. " He had spent," says 
 Kampfer, "the greatest part of his life in holy pilgrimages, running 
 up and down the country, and visiting almost all the temples of the 
 Japanese empire. The superstitious vulgar had got such a high 
 notion of his holiness, that even in his lifetime they canonized and 
 reverenced him as a great saint, to the extent of worshipping his 
 statue, which he caused to be carved of stone, exceeding in this 
 even Alexander the Great, who had no divine honors paid him 
 during his life. Those of his countrymen who were of our retinue 
 did not fail to run thither to see and pay their respects to that holy 
 man." 
 
* 358 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691, 
 
 The Dutch company lodged at Kanagawa, a town of six hundred 
 houses, twenty-four miles from the capital. The coast of the bay 
 appeared at low water to be of a soft clay, furnishing abundance of 
 shell-fish and of certain sea-weeds, which were gathered and pre- 
 pared for food. The road the next day (Tuesday, March 13), 
 still hugging the shore, led on through a fruitful and populous dis- 
 trict, in which were several fishing villages, the bay abounding with 
 fish. As they approached Sinagaiua, they passed a place of public 
 execution, offering a show of human heads and bodies, some half 
 putrified and others half devoured — dogs, ravens, crows and other 
 ravenous beasts and birds, uniting to satisfy their appetites on these 
 miserable remains* 
 
 Sinagawa, immediately adjoining Jedo, of which it forms a sort 
 of outer suburb, consisted of one long, irregular street, with the bay 
 on the right, and a hill on the left, on which stood some temples. 
 Some few narrow streets and lanes turned off from the great one 
 towards these temples, some of which were very spacious buildings, 
 and all pleasantly seated, adorned within with gilt idols, and with- 
 out with large carved images, curious gates, and staircases of 
 stone leading up to them. One of them was remarkable for a 
 magnificent tower, four stories high. " Though the Japanese," says 
 Kampfer, " spare no trouble nor expense to adorn and beautify their 
 temples, yet the best fall far short of that loftiness, symmetry and 
 stateliness, which is observable in some of our European churches." 
 
 Having ridden upwards of two miles through Sinagawa, they 
 stopped at a small inn, pleasantly seated on the sea-side, from 
 which they had a full view of the city and harbor of Jedo, crowded 
 with many hundred ships and boats of all sizes and shapes. The 
 smallest lay nearest the town, and the largest one or two leagues off, 
 not being able to go higher by reason of • the shallowing of the 
 water. " Our Bugio," says Kampfer, " quitted his norimon here 
 and went on horseback, people of his extraction not being suffered 
 to enter the capital in a norimon. We travelled near a mile to the 
 end of the suburb of Sinagawa, and then entered the suburbs of 
 Jedo, whidi are only a continuation of the former, there being 
 
 * At the date of these travels, and indeed at a much later period, similar 
 exhibitions might have been seen in Europe. 
 
ENTRANCE INTO JEDO. 359 
 
 nothing to separate them but a small guard-house. The bay comes 
 here so close to the foot of the hill that there is but one row of 
 small houses between it and the road, which, for some time, runs 
 along the shore, but soon widens into several irregular streets of a 
 considerable length, which, after about half an hour's riding, 
 became broader, more uniform, handsome and regular ; whence, and 
 from the great throngs of people, we concluded that we were now 
 got into the city. We kept to the great middle street, which runs 
 northward across the whole city, though somewhat irregularly, 
 passing over several stately bridges laid across small rivers and 
 muddy canals, which run on our left towards the castle, and on our 
 right towards the sea, as did also several streets turning off from 
 the great one. 
 
 " The throng of people along this chief and middle street, which is 
 about one hundred and twenty-five feet broad, is incredible. We 
 met as we rode along many numerous trains of princes of the em- 
 pire and great men at court, and ladies richly apparelled, carried 
 in norimons ; and, among other people, a company of firemen on 
 foot, about one hundred in number, walking in much the same 
 military order as ours do in Europe. They were clad in brown 
 leather coats to defend them against the fire ; and some carried 
 long pikes, others fire-hooks, upon their shoulders. Their captain 
 rode in the middle. On both sides of the street were multitudes of 
 well-furnished shops of merchants and tradesmen, drapers, silk-mer 
 chants, druggists, idol-sellers, booksellers, glass-blowers, apotheca- 
 ries and others. A black cloth hanging down covers one half of the 
 shop, of which the front projects a little way into the street, so as 
 to expose to view curious patterns of the goods offered for sale. 
 We took. notice that scarce anybody here had curiosity enough to 
 come out of his house to sec us go by, as they had done in other 
 places, probably because such a small retinue as ours had nothing 
 remarkable or uncommon to amuse the inhabitants of so populous a 
 city. 
 
 "Having rode above tw) miles along this great street, and 
 passed by fifty other streets, which turned off on both sides, we at 
 last turned in ourselves ; and, coming to our inn, found our lodgings 
 ready in the upper story oi' a back house, which had no other 
 access but through a by-lane. We arrived at one in the after- 
 
360 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691. 
 
 noon, having completed our journey from Nagasaki in twenty-nine 
 days. 
 
 *' Jedo, the residence of the emperor, the capital, and by much 
 the largest city of the empire, is seated in the province Musasi, in 
 35° 32' of northern latitude [according to Kampfer's observations], 
 on a large plain, at the head of a gulf, plentifully stored with fish, 
 crabs, and other shell-fish, but so shallow, with a muddy clay at 
 the bottom, that no ships of bulk can come up to the city, but must 
 be unladen a league or two below it. 
 
 " Towards the sea the city hath the figure of a half-moon, and 
 the Japanese will have it to be seven of their miles (about sixteen 
 English miles) long, five (twelve English) broad, and twenty (fifty 
 English) in circumference. It is not enclosed with a wall, no more 
 than other towns in Japan, but cut through by many broad canals, 
 with ramparts raised on both sides, and planted at the top with 
 rows of trees, not so much for defence as to prevent the fires — 
 which happen here too frequently — from making too great a 
 havoc. 
 
 " A large river, rising westward of the city, runs through it, and 
 loses itself in the harbor. It sends off a considerable arm, which 
 encompasses the castle, and thence falls into the harbor, in five 
 different streams, every one of which hath its particular name, and 
 a stately bridge over it. The chief, and most famous, of these 
 bridges, two hundred and fifty-two feet in length, is called Ni- 
 ponbas, or the bridge of Japan, mention of which has already been - 
 made, as the point from which distances are reckoned all over the 
 empire. 
 
 " Jedo is not built with that regularity which is observable in 
 most other cities in Japan (particularly Miako), and this because 
 it swelled by degrees to its present bulk. However, in some parts 
 the streets run regularly enough, cutting each other at right angles 
 — a regularity entirely owing to accidents of fire, whereby some 
 hundred houses being laid in ashes at once, as, indeed, very fre- 
 quently happens, the new streets may be laid cut upon what plan 
 the builders please." Many places, which have been thus destroyed 
 by fire, were noticed by Kampfer still lying waste. " The houses 
 are small and low, built of fir wood, with thin clayed walls, divided 
 into rooms by paper screens and lattices, the floors covered with 
 
DESCRIPTION OF JEDO. 361 
 
 mats, and the roofs with shavings of wood. The whole machine 
 being thus but a composition of combustible matter, we need not 
 wonder at the great havoc fires make in this country. Here, as 
 elsewhere, almost every house hath a place under the roof, or Upon 
 it, where they constantly keep a tub full of water, with a couple of 
 mats, which may be easily come at, even from without the house ; 
 by which precaution they often quench a fire in particular houses ; 
 but it is far from being sufficient to stop the fury of a raging flame 
 which has got ground already, against which they know no better 
 remedy but to pull down some of the neighboring houses which 
 have not yet been reached, for which purpose whole compaDies of 
 firemen patrol about the streets day and night. 
 
 " The city is well stocked with monks, temples, monasteries, and 
 other religious buildings, which are seated in the best and pleasantest 
 places, as they are, also, in Europe, and, I believe, in all other 
 countries. The dwelling-houses of private monks are no ways dif- 
 ferent from those of the laity, excepting only that they are seated 
 in some eminent conspicuous place, with some steps leading up to 
 them, and a small temple or chapel hard by, or, if there be none, 
 at least a hall, or large room, adorned with some few altars, on 
 which stand several of their idols. There are, besides, many stately 
 temples built to Amida, Siaka, Quanwon, and several other of their 
 gods, not necessary to be particularly described here, as they do 
 not differ much in form or structure from other temples erected to 
 the same gods at Miako, which we shall have an opportunity to 
 view and describe more particularly upon our return to that city. 
 
 " There are many stately palaces in Jedo, as may be easily con- 
 jectured, by its being the residence of the emperor, and the abode 
 of all the noble and princely families. They are distinguished from 
 other houses by large court-yards and stately gates. Fine varnished 
 stair-cases, of a few steps, lead up to the door of the house, which 
 is divided into several magnificent apartments, all of a floor, they 
 being not above one story high, nor adorned with towers, as the 
 castles and palaces are where the princes and lords of the empire 
 reside in their hereditary dominions. 
 
 " The city of Jedo is a nursery of artists, handicraftsmen, mer- 
 chants, and tradesmen, and yet everything is sold dearer than any- 
 where else in the empire, by reason of the great concourse of people, 
 31 
 
362 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691. 
 
 and the number of idle monks and courtiers, as, also, the difficulty 
 of importing provisions and other commodities. 
 
 " The political government of this city is much the same as at 
 Nagasaki and Osaka. Two governors have the command of the 
 town by turns, each for the space of one year. The chief subaltern 
 officers are the Burgo-masters, as the Dutch call them, or mayors, 
 who have the command of particular quarters, and the Ottona, 
 who have the inspection and subordinate command of single streets. 
 
 " The castle and residence of the emperor is seated about the 
 middle of the city. It is of an irregular figure, inclining to the 
 round, and hath five Japanese miles in circumference. It embraces 
 two fore-castles, as one may call them, the innermost and third cas- 
 tle, which is properly the residence of the emperor, and two other 
 strong, well fortified, but smaller, castles at the sides, also some 
 large gardens behind the imperial palace. I call these several divis- 
 ions castles, because they are every one by itself, enclosed with 
 walls and ditches. 
 
 " The first and outermost castle takes in a large spot of ground, 
 which encompasses the second castle, and half the imperial residence, 
 and is enclosed itself with walls and ditches, and strong, well- 
 guarded, gates. It hath so many streets, ditches, and canals, that 
 I could not easily get a plan of it. Nor could I gather anything 
 to my satisfaction out of the plans of the Japanese themselves .* 
 In this outermost castle reside the princes of the empire, with their 
 families, living in commodious and stately palaces, built in streets, 
 with spacious courts, shut up by strong, heavy gates. The second 
 castle takes in a much smaller spot of ground. It fronts the third, 
 and residence of the emperor, and is enclosed by the first, but sep- 
 arated from both by walls, ditches, draw-bridges, and strong gates. 
 The guard of this second castle is much more numerous than that 
 of the first. In it are the stately palaces of some of the most power- 
 ful princes of the empire, the councillors of state, the prime minis- 
 ters, chief officers of the crown, and such other persons, who must 
 give a more immediate attendance upon the emperor's person. 
 
 " The castle itself, where the emperor resides, is seated somewhat 
 
 * One of these Japanese plans is published as a frontispiece to Titsingh's 
 < Illustrations of Japan." This plan would seem to embrace only what 
 Kampfer speaks of, further on, as " the palace itself." 
 
IMPERIAL PALACE. 365 
 
 higher than the others, on the top of a hill, which hath been pur- 
 posely flatted for the imperial palace to be built upon it. It is 
 enclosed with a thick, strong wall of free-stone, with bastions stand- 
 ing out, much after the manner of the European fortifications. A 
 rampart of earth is raised against the inside of this wall, and at 
 the top of it stand, for ornament and defence, several long buildings 
 and square guard-houses, built in form of towers, several stories 
 high. Particularly the structures on that side where the imperial 
 residence is are of an uncommon strength, all of free-stone of an 
 extraordinary size, which are barely laid upon each other, without 
 being fastened either with mortar or braces of iron, which was 
 done, they say, that, in case of earthquakes, which frequently hap- 
 pen in this country, the stones yielding to the shock, the wall itself 
 should receive no damage. 
 
 " Within the palace a square white tower rises aloft above all 
 other buildings. It is many stories high, adorned with roofs, and 
 other curious ornaments, which make the whole castle look, at a 
 distance, magnificent beyond expression, amazing the beholders, as 
 do, also, the many other beautiful bended roofs, with gilt dragons 
 at the top, which cover the rest of the buildings within the castle. 
 
 " The side castles are very small, and more like citadels, without 
 any outward ornament. There is but one passage to them, out of 
 the emperor's own residence, over a high, long bridge. Both are 
 enclosed with strong, high walls, encompassed with broad, deep 
 ditches, filled by the great river. In these two castles are bred up 
 the imperial princes and princesses. 
 
 " Behind the imperial residence there is still a rising ground, 
 beautified, according to the country fashion, with curious and mag- 
 nificent gardens and orchards, which are terminated by a pleasant 
 wood at the top of a hill, planted with two curious kinds of plane- 
 trees, whose starry leaves, variegated with green, yellow, and red, 
 are very pleasing to the eye, of which the Japanese affirm that one 
 kind is in full beauty in spring, the other towards autumn. 
 
 " The palace itself hath but one story, which, however, is of a 
 fine height. It takes in a large spot of ground, and hath several 
 long galleries and spacious rooms, which, upon putting on or remov- 
 ing of screens, may be enlarged or brought into a narrower com 
 pass, as occasion requires, and are contrived so as to receive at al' 
 
364 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691. 
 
 times a convenient and sufficient light. The chief apartments have 
 each its particular name. Such are, for instance, the waiting- 
 room, where all persons that are to be admitted to an audience, 
 either of the emperor or his prime ministers of state, wait till they 
 are introduced ; the council-chamber, where the ministers of state 
 and privy councillors meet upon business ; the hall of thousand 
 mats, where the emperor receives the homage and usual presents 
 of the princes of the empire and ambassadors of foreign powers ; 
 several halls of audience ; the apartments for the emperor's house- 
 hold,, and others. The structure of all these several apartments is 
 exquisitely fine, according to the architecture of the country. The 
 ceilings, beams, and pillars, are of cedar, or camphor, or jeseriwood, 
 the grain of which naturally runs into flowers and other curious 
 figures, and is, therefore, in some apartments, covered only with a 
 thin, transparent, layer of varnish, in others japanned, or curiously 
 carved with birds and branched work, neatly gilt. The floor is 
 covered with the finest white mats, bordered with gold fringes or 
 bands ; and this is all the furniture to be seen in the palaces of the 
 emperor and princes of the empire." 
 
 The 29th of March, the last of the second Japanese month, 
 was appointed for the reception of the Dutch — Makino Bingo, the 
 emperor's principal counsellor and favorite, being in a hurry to get 
 rid of them, because on the fifth of the ensuing month he was to 
 have the honor to treat the. emperor at dinner, a favor which re- 
 quires a good deal of time and vast preparations. " This Bingo," 
 says Kampfer, " tutor to the reigning monarch before he came to 
 the crown, is now his chief favorite, and the only person whom he 
 absolutely confides in. At our audience it is he that receives the 
 emperor's words and commands from his own mouth, and addresses 
 the same to us. He is near seventy years of age, a tall but lean 
 man, with a long face, a manly and German-like countenance, slow 
 in his actions, and very civil in his whole behavior. He hath the 
 character of a just and prudent man, no ways given to ambition, 
 nor inclined to revenge, nor bent upon heaping up immoderate 
 riches — in short, of being altogether worthy of the great confidence 
 »nd trust the emperor puts in him." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 PERSONAGES TO BE VISITED. VISIT TO THE EMPEROR. — FIRST AUDIENCE 
 
 SECOND AUDIENCE. VISITS ■ TO THE HOUSES OF THE COUNCILLORS. — 
 
 VISITS TO THE GOVERNORS OF JEDO AND THE TEMPLE LORDS. VISITS TC 
 
 THE HOUSES OF THE GOVERNORS OF NAGASAKI. AUDIENCE OF LEAVE. — ■ 
 
 RETURN. VISITS TO TEMPLES IN THE VICINITY OF MIAKO. A. D. 1691— 1G92. 
 
 The ministers of state and other great men at court, some of 
 whom the Dutch were to visit, and to make presents to others, were 
 the five chief councillors of state, called Goratzi, or the five elderly 
 men ; four imperial deputy councillors of state ; the three Dsisia, 
 as they are called, that is, lords of the temple ; the imperial 
 commissioners, as the Dutch call them, described by Kampfer as the 
 emperor's attorney-generals for the city of Jedo ; the two governors 
 of Jedo ; and, last of all, that one of the governors of Nagasaki 
 resident at Jedo. 
 
 " On the 29th of March," * says Kampfer, " the day appointed 
 for our audience, the presents designed for his imperial majesty t were 
 sent to court, to be there laid in due order on wooden tables, in the 
 hall of hundred mats, as they call it, where the emperor was to 
 view them. We followed soon after with a very inconsiderable 
 equipage, clad in black silk cloaks, as garments of ceremony, 
 attended by three stewards of the governors of Nagasaki, our 
 Dosiu or deputy Bugio, two town messengers of Nagasaki, and an 
 interpreter's son, all walking on foot. We three Dutchmen and 
 our second interpreter rode on horseback, behind each other, our 
 horses led lsy grooms, who took them by the bridle. Our president, 
 
 * The 23d a considerable shock of an earthquake was felt. The weather 
 that day was excessively hot. The next day it was very cold, with snow. 
 
 t The reigning emperor was Tsuma Josi, who had succeeded to the em- 
 pire in 1G81, the fourth in succession from Gongin-Sama the founder of the 
 dynasty. The Japanese accounts, according to Titsingh, give hini but a bad 
 Character 
 
 31* 
 
366 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691—1692. 
 
 or captain, as the Japanese call him, came after us, carried in a 
 norimon, and was followed by our old chief interpreter, carried in 
 a kango. The procession was closed by the rest of our servants 
 and retinue, walking a-foot at proper distances, so far as they were 
 permitted to follow us. 
 
 " In this order we moved on towards the castle, and after about 
 half an hour's riding came to the first enclosure, which we found 
 well fortified with walls and ramparts. This we entered over a 
 large bridge across a broad river, on which we saw great numbers 
 of boats and vessels. The entry is through two strong gates, with 
 a small guard between them. Having passed through the second 
 gate, we came to a large place, where we found another more numer- 
 ous guard, which, however, seemed to be intended more for state 
 than defence. The guard-room was hung about with cloth ; pikes 
 were planted in the ground near the entry, and within it was curi- 
 ously adorned with gilt arms, lackered guns, pikes, shields, bows, 
 arrows and quivers. The soldiers on. the ground were in good 
 order, clad in black silk, each with two scymetars stuck in their 
 girdle. 
 
 " Having passed across this first enclosure, riding between the 
 houses and palaces of the princes and lords of the empire, built 
 within its compass, we came to the second, which we found fortified 
 much after the same manner, only the gates and inner guard and 
 palaces were much more stately and magnificent. We left our 
 norimon and kangos here, as also our horses and servants, and were 
 conducted across this second enclosure to the Tonomatz [Lord- 
 street], which we entered over a long stone bridge; and having 
 passed through a double bastion, and as many strong gates, and 
 thence about twenty paces further through an irregular street, built, 
 as the situation of the ground would allow it, with walls of an un- 
 common height on both sides, we came to the Fiakninban, that is, 
 guard of hundred men, or great guard of the castle. Here we 
 were commanded to wait till we could be introduced to an audience, 
 which we were told should be as soon as the great council of state 
 was met in the palace. We were civilly received by the two cap- 
 tains of the guard, who treated us with tea and tobacco. Soon 
 after, Tsina-Kami (the governor of Nagasaki resident at Jedo), and 
 the two commissioners, came to compliment us, along with some gen- 
 
IMPERIAL AUDIENCE. 367 
 
 ilemen of the emperor's court, who were strangers to us. Having 
 waited about an hour, during which time most of the imperial coun- 
 cillors of state, old and young, went into the palace, some walking 
 on foot, others carried in norimons, we were conducted through two 
 stately gates, over a large square place, to the palace, to which there 
 is an ascent of a few steps leading from the second gate. The place 
 between the second gate and the front of the palace is but a few 
 paces broad, and was then excessively crowded with throngs of 
 courtiers and troops of guards. 
 
 " Thence we were conducted up two other stair-cases into a spa- 
 cious room next to the entry on the right, being the place where all 
 persons that are to be admitted to an audience wait till they are 
 called in. It is a large and lofty room, but, when all the screens 
 are put on, pretty dark, receiving but a sparing light from the upper 
 windows of an adjoining room. It is otherwise richly furnished, 
 according to the country fashion, and its gilt posts, walls and screens, 
 are very pleasing to behold. 
 
 " Having waited here upwards of an hour, and the emperor hav- 
 ing in the mean while seated himself in the hall of audience, Tsina- 
 Kami and the two commissioners came in and conducted our presi- 
 dent into the emperor's presence, leaving us behind. As soon as 
 he came thither, they cried out aloud, Hollanda Captain ! which 
 was the signal for him to draw near and make his obeisance. Ac- 
 cordingly he crawled on his hands and knees to a place showed him 
 between the presents, ranged in due order on one side, and the 
 place where the emperor sat on the other, an'd then kneeling, he 
 bowed his forehead quite down to the ground, and so crawled back- 
 wards like a crab, without uttering one single word. So mean and 
 short a thing is the audience we have of this mighty monarch. 
 Nor are there any more ceremonies observed in the audience he 
 gives even to the greatest and most powerful princes of the empire ; 
 for, having been called into the hall, their names are cried out 
 aloud ; then they move on their hands and feet humbly and silently 
 towards the emperor's seat, and having showed their submission by 
 bowing their forehead down to the ground, they creep back again in 
 the same submissive posture. 
 
 " The hall of audience is not in the least like that which hath 
 been described and figured by Montanus in his Memorable Embas- 
 
368 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691-1692. 
 
 sies of the Dutch to the Emperors of Japan. The elevated throne, 
 the steps leading up to it, the carpets pendent from it, the stately 
 columns supporting the building which contains the throne, the 
 columns between which the princes of the empire are said to pros- 
 trate themselves before the emperor, and the like, have all no man- 
 ner of foundation but in that author's fancy. The floor is covered 
 with an hundred mats, all of the same size. Hence it is called 
 Sen Sio Siki, that is, The Hall of an Hundred Mats.* It opens 
 on one side towards a small court, which lets in the light ; on the 
 opposite side it joins two other apartments, which are on this occa- 
 sion laid open towards the same court, one of which is considerably 
 larger than the other, and serves for the councillors of state when 
 they give audience by themselves. The other is narrower, deeper, 
 and one step higher than the hall itself. In this the emperor sits 
 when he gives audience, raised only on a few carpets. Nor is it an 
 easy matter to see him, the light reaching not quite so far as the 
 place where he sits, besides that the audience is too short, and the 
 person admitted to it, in so humble and submissive a posture that 
 he cannot well have an opportunity to hold up his head and to view 
 him. This audience is otherwise very awful and majestic, by reason 
 chiefly of the silent presence of all the councillors of state, as also 
 of many princes and lords of the empire, the gentlemen of his 
 majesty's bed-chamber, and other- chief officers of his court, who 
 line the hall of audience and all its avenues, sitting in good order, 
 and clad in their garments of ceremony. 
 
 " Formerly all we had to do, at the emperor's court, was com- 
 pleted by the captain's paying the usual homage, after the manner 
 above related. But, for about these twenty years last past, he and 
 the rest of the Dutchmen that came up with the embassy to Jedo, 
 were conducted deeper into the palace, to give the empress, and the 
 ladies of her court, and the princesses of the blood, the diversion 
 of seeing us. In this second audience the emperor and the ladies 
 invited to it attend behind screens and lattices, but the councillors 
 
 * Sen is not a hundred, but a thousand. According to Klaproth {Annals 
 des Dairi, p. 184), ken or kin does not signify a mat, as Kampfer translates 
 it (though mats were made of that length), but a space between columns. It 
 was a measure of length divided into six Japanese feet, but equal to seven 
 feet four inches and a half, Rhine 1 ^ud measure. But see Glossary 
 
FAMILIAR RECEPTION. B69 
 
 of state and other officers of the court sit in the open rooms in their 
 usual and elegant order. As soon as the captain Jiad paid his 
 homage, the emperor retired into his apartment, and not long after 
 we three Dutchmen were likewise called up and conducted, together 
 with the captain, through several apartments, into a gallery curi- 
 ously carved and gilt, where we waited about a quarter of an hour, 
 and were then, through several other walks and galleries, carried 
 further into a large room, where they desired us to sit clown, and 
 where several courtiers with shaved heads, being the emperor's 
 physicians, the officers of his kitchen, and some of the clergy, came 
 to ask after our names, age and the like ; but gilt screens were 
 quickly drawn before us, to deliver us from their throng and 
 troublesome importunity. 
 
 " We staid here about half an hour ; meanwhile the court met in 
 the imperial apartments, where we were to have our second audi- 
 ence, and whither we were conducted through several dark galleries. 
 Along all these several galleries there was one continued row of 
 life-guardsmen, and nearer- to the imperial apartments followed in 
 the same row some great officers, who lined the front of the hall 
 of audience, clad in their garments of ceremony, bowing their heads 
 and sitting on their heels. 
 
 " The hall of audience consisted of several rooms looking towards 
 a middle place, some of which were laid open towards the same, 
 others covered by screens and lattices. Some were of fifteen mats, 
 * thers of eighteen, and they were a mat higher or lower, according 
 to the quality of the persons seated in the same. The middle place 
 had no mats at all, they having been taken away, and was conse- 
 quently the lowest, on whose floor, covered with neat varnished 
 boards, we were commanded to sit down. The emperor and his 
 imperial consort sat behind the lattices on our right. As .1 was 
 dancing, at the emperor's command, I had an opportunity twice of 
 seeing the empress through the slits of the lattices, and took notice 
 that she was of a brown and beautiful complexion, with black Euro- 
 pean eyes, full of fire, and from the proportion of her head, which 
 was pretty large, I judged her to be a tall woman, and about thirty- 
 six years of age. By lattices, I mean hangings made of reed, split 
 exceedingly thin and fine, and covered on the back with a fine, 
 transparent silk, with openings about a span broad, for the persons 
 
370 JAPAN. A. D. 1691—1692. 
 
 behind to look through. For ornament's sake, and the better to 
 hide the persons standing behind, they are painted with divers » 
 figures, though it would be impossible to see them at a distance 
 when the light is taken off behind. 
 
 " The emperor himself was in such an obscure place that we 
 should scarce have known him to be present had not his voice dis- 
 covered him, which yet was so low, as if he purposely intended to 
 be there incognito. Just before us, behind other lattices were the 
 princes of the blood and the ladies of the empress and her court. 1 
 took notice that pieces of paper were put between the reeds, in 
 some parts of the lattices, to make the openings wider, in order to 
 a better and easier sight. I counted about thirty such papers, 
 which made me conclude, that there was about that number of per^ 
 sons sitting behind. 
 
 " Bingo sat on a raised mat, in an open room by himself, just 
 before us, towards our right, on whish side the emperor sat behind 
 the lattices. On our left, in another room, were the councillors of 
 state of the first and second rank, sitting in a double row in good 
 and becoming order. The gallery behind us was filled with the 
 chief officers of the emperor's court and the gentlemen of his bed- 
 chamber. The gallery, which led into the room where the emperor 
 was, was filled with the sons of some princes of the empire, then at 
 court, the emperor's pages and some priests. After this manner it 
 was that they ordered the stage on which we were now to act. 
 
 " The commissioners for foreign affairs having conducted us into* 
 the gallery before the hall of audience, one of the councillors of 
 state of the second rank came to receive us there and to conduct 
 us to the above-described middle place, on which we were com- 
 manded to sit down, having first made our obeisances after the Jap- 
 anese manner, creeping and bowing our heads to the ground, towards 
 that part of the lattices behind which the emperor was. The chief 
 interpreter sat himself a little forward, to hear more distinctly, and 
 we took our places on his left hand all in a row. After the usual 
 obeisances, Bingo bid us welcome in the emperor's name. The 
 chief interpreter received the compliment from Bingo's mouth, and 
 repeated it to us. Upon this the ambassador made his compliment 
 in the name of his masters, returning their most humble thanks to 
 the emperor foi having graciously granted the Dutch liberty of 
 
FAMILIAR RECEPTION. 37l 
 
 commerce. This the chief interpreter repeated in Japanese, having 
 prostrated himself quite to the ground, and speaking loud enough to 
 be heard by the emperor. The emperor's answer was again 
 received by Bingo, who delivered it to the chief interpreter, and he 
 to us. He might have, indeed, received it himself from the 
 emperor's own mouth, and saved Bingo this unnecessary trouble ; 
 but I fancy that the words, as they flow out of the emperor's 
 mouth, are esteemed too precious and sacred for an immediate 
 transit into the mouth of persons of a low rank. 
 
 " The mutual compliments being over, the succeeding part of this 
 solemnity turned to a perfect farce. We were asked a thousand 
 ridiculous and impertinent questions. They desired to know how 
 old each of us was, and what was his name, which we were com- ' 
 manded to write upon a bit of paper, in anticipation of which we 
 had provided ourselves with an European inkhorn. This paper, 
 together with the inkhorn itself, we were commanded to give to 
 Bingo, who delivered them both into the emperor's hands, reaching 
 them over below the lattice. The captain, or ambassador, was 
 asked the distance of Holland from Batavia, and of Batavia from 
 Nagasaki; also which of the two was the most powerful, the Direc- 
 tor-general of the Dutch East India Company at Batavia, or the 
 Prince of Holland? As for my own particular, the following 
 questions were put to me. What external and internal distempers 
 I thought the most dangerous and most difficult to cure ? How I 
 proceeded in the cure .of cancerous humors and imposthumations 
 of the inner parts ? Whether our European physicians did not 
 search after some medicine to render people immortal, as the Chi- 
 nese physicians had done for many hundred years ? Whether we 
 had made any considerable progress in this search, and which was 
 the last remedy conducive to long life that had been found out in 
 Europe ? To which I returned in answer, that very many Euro- 
 pean physicians had long labored to find out some medicine, which 
 should have the virtue of prolonging human life and preserving 
 people in health to a great age ; and having thereupon been asked 
 which I thought the best, I answered, that I always took that to 
 be the best which was found out last, till experience taught us a 
 better ; and being further asked, which was the last, I answered, a 
 certain spirituous liquor, which could keep the humors of our body 
 
372 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691— 1692. 
 
 fluid and comfort the spirits. This general answer proved not 
 altogether satisfactory ; for I was quickly desired to let them know 
 the name of this excellent medicine, upon which, knowing that 
 whatever was esteemed by the Japanese had long and high-sounding 
 names, I returned in answer it was the Sal volatile Oleosum Sylviz. 
 This name was minuted down behind the lattices, for which purpose 
 I was commanded to repeat it several times. The next question 
 was, who it was that found it out, and where it was found out ? 
 I answered, Professor Sylvius, in Holland. Then they asked 
 whether I could make it up. Upon this our resident whispered 
 me to say no ; but I answered, yes, I could make it up, but not 
 here. Then it was asked whether it could be had at Batavia ; and 
 having returned, in answer, that it was to be had there, the emperor 
 desired that it should be sent over by the next ships. 
 
 " The emperor, hitherto seated almost opposite to us, at a 
 considerable distance, now drew nearer, and sat himself down 
 on our right, behind the lattices, as near us as possible. He or- 
 dered- us to take off our cappas, or cloaks, being our garments of 
 ceremony ; then to stand upright, that he might have a full view of 
 us ; again to walk, to stand still, to compliment each other, to dance, 
 to jump, to play the drunkard, to speak broken Japanese, to read 
 Dutch, to paint, to sing, to put our cloaks on and off. Meanwhile 
 we obeyed the emperor's commands in the best manner we could, I 
 joining to my dance a love-song in High Grerman. In this manner, 
 and with innumerable such other apish tricks, we must suffer our 
 selves to contribute to the emperor's and the court's diversion. The 
 ambassador, however, is free from these and the like commands, for, 
 as he represents the authority of his masters, some care is taken 
 that nothing should be done to injure or prejudice the same ; and 
 besides he showed so much gravity on his countenance and whole 
 behavior, as was sufficient to convince the Japanese that he was 
 not at all a fit person to have such ridiculous and comical com- 
 mands laid upon him. 
 
 "Having been thus exercised for a matter of two hours, though 
 with great apparent civility, some shaved servants came in and put 
 before each of us a small table with Japanese victuals, and a couple 
 of ivory sticks instead of knives and forks. We took and eat some 
 little things, and our old chief interpreter, though scarce able to 
 
VISITS TO THE HIGH OFFICERS. 373 
 
 walk, was commanded to carry away the remainder for himself. "We 
 were then ordered to put on our cloaks again and to take our leave ; 
 which we gladly and without delay complied with, putting thereby 
 an end to this second audience.* The imperial audience over, we 
 were conducted back by the two commissioners to the waiting-room, 
 where we took our leave of them also. 
 
 " It was now already three o'clock in the afternoon, and we had 
 still several visits to make to the councillors of state of the first 
 and second rank. Accordingly we left forthwith, saluted as we 
 went by the officers of the great imperial guard, and made our 
 round a-foot. The presents had been carried beforehand to every 
 one's house by our clerks. They consisted of some Chinese, Ben- 
 galese, and other silk stufis, some linen, black serge, some yards of 
 black cloth, gingangs, pelangs, and a flask of Tent wine. 
 
 " We were everywhere received by the stewards and secretaries 
 with extraordinary civility, and treated with tea, tobacco and 
 sweetmeats, as handsomely as the little time we had to spare would 
 allow. The rooms where we were admitted to audience were filled 
 behind the screens and lattices with crowds of spectators, who 
 would fain have obliged us to show them some of our European 
 customs and ceremonies, but could obtain nothing excepting only a 
 short dance at Bingo's house (who came home himself a back way), 
 and a song from each of us at the youngest councillor's of state. We 
 then returned again to our kangos and horses, and having got out of 
 the castle, through the northern gate, went back to our inn another 
 
 * In his account of his second visit to Jedo, a year later, Kampfer gives the 
 following account of this second audience : " Soon after we came in, and 
 had, after the usual observances, seated ourselves in the place assigned us, 
 Bingo-sama welcomed us in the emperor's name, and then desired us to sit 
 upright, to take off our cloaks, to tell him our names and age, to stand up, 
 to walk, to turn about, to sing songs, to compliment one another, to be angry 
 to invite one another to dinner, to converse one with another, to discourse in 
 a familiar way like father and son, to show how two friends or man and wife 
 compliment or take leave of one another, to play with children, to carry them 
 about in our arms, and to do many more things of a like nature. They made 
 us kiss one another like man and wife, which the ladies, by their laughter, 
 showed themselves to be particularly well pleased with. It was already four 
 in the afternoon when we left the hall of audience, after having been exercised 
 after this manner for two hours and a half." 
 
 32 
 
374 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691^1692. 
 
 way, on the left of which we took notice that there were strong walls 
 and ditches. It was just six in the evening when we got home, 
 heartily tirod. 
 
 "Friday, the 30th of March, we rode out again betimes, in the 
 morning, to make some of our remaining visits. The presents, such 
 as above-described, were sent before us by our Japanese clerks, who 
 took care to lay them on trays or tables, and to arrange them in 
 good order, according to the country fashion. We were received 
 at the entry of the house, by one or two of the principal domestics, 
 and conducted to the apartment where we were to have our au- 
 dience. The rooms round the hall of audience were everywhere 
 crowded with spectators. As soon as we had seated ourselves we 
 were treated with tea and tobacco. Then the steward of the 
 household came in, or else the secretary, either alone or with 
 another gentleman, to compliment us, and to receive our com- 
 pliments, in his master's name. The rooms were everywhere so 
 disposed as to make us turn our faces towards the ladies, by 
 whom we were very generously and civilly treated with cake« 
 and several sorts of sweetmeats. We visited and made our pres- 
 ents, this day, to the two governors of Jedo, to the three eccle- 
 siastical judges (or temple lords), and to the two commissioners for 
 foreign affairs, who lived near a mile from each other, one in the 
 south-west, the other in the north-east, part of the castle. They 
 both profess themselves to be particular patrons of the Dutch, and 
 received us accordingly with great pomp and magnificence. The 
 street was lineS with twenty men armed, who, with their long staffs, 
 which they held on one side, made a very good figure, besides that 
 they helped to keep off the throng of people from being too trouble- 
 some. We were received upon our entering the house, and intro- 
 duced to audience, much after the same manner as we had been in 
 other places, only we were carried deeper into their palaces and 
 into the innermost apartment, on purpose that we should not be 
 troubled with numbers of spectators, and be at more liberty our- 
 selves as well as the ladies who were invited to the ceremony. Op- 
 posite us, in the hall of audience, there were grated lattices, instead 
 of screens, for the length of two mats (twelve feet) and upwards, 
 behind which sat such numbers of women of the commissioner's own 
 family and their relations and friends, that there was no room left. 
 
BILLS OF FARE. 375 
 
 We had scarce seated ourselves, when seven servants, well clad, 
 came in, and brought us pipes and tobacco, with the usual apparatus 
 for smoking. Soon after, they brought in something baked, laid on 
 japanned trays, then some fish fried, all after the same manner, by 
 the same number of servants, and always but one piece in a small 
 dish ; then a couple of eggs, one baked, the other boiled and shelled, 
 and a glass of old, strong saki standing between them. After this 
 manner we were entertained for about an hour and a half, when 
 they desired us to sing a song and to dance ; the first we refused, 
 but satisfied them as to the last. In the house of the first commis- 
 sioner's a drink made of sweet plums was offered us instead of saki. 
 In the second commissioner's house we were presented first of all 
 with mange bread,* in a brown liquor, cold, with some mustard- 
 seed and radishes laid about the dish, and at last with some orange- 
 peels with sugar, which is a dish given only upon extraordinary 
 occasions, in token of fortune and'good will. We then drank some 
 tea, and having taken our leave, went back to our inn, where we 
 arrived at five in the evening." 
 
 [The following bills of fare are given in Kampfer's account of his 
 second visit to Jedo : " At the first commissioner's : 1. Tea. 2. 
 Tobacco, with the whole set of instruments for smoking. 3. Philo- 
 sophical or white syrup. 4. A piece of stienbrassen, a very scarce 
 fish, boiled in a brown sauce. 5. Another dish offish, dressed with 
 bran-flower and spices. 6. Cakes of eggs rolled together. 7. Fried 
 fish, presented on skewers of bamboo. 8. Lemon-peels with sugar. 
 
 " After every one of these dishes they made us drink a dish of 
 saki, as good as ever I tasted. We were likewise presented twice, in 
 dram cups, with wine made of plums, a very pleasant and agreeable 
 liquor. Last of all, we were again presented with a cup of tea. 
 
 "At the second commissioner's we were treated, after tea and 
 tobacco, with the following things : 1. Two long slices of mange, 
 dipped into a brown sop or sauce, with some ginger. 2. Hard 
 eggs. 3. Four common fish fried and brought in on bamboo skew- 
 ers. 4. The stomachs of carps, salt, in a brown sauce. 5. Two 
 
 * This is what Kiimpfer calls, in another place, Mansies, and describes as 
 a sort of round cakes, Avhich the Japanese had learned to make of the Portu- 
 guese, as big as a common hen's egg, and sometimes filled within with bean- 
 flour and sugar. 
 
§76 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691—1692. 
 
 small slices of a goose, roasted and warm, presented in unglazed 
 earthen dishes. • 
 
 " Good liquor was drank about plentifully, and the commission 
 er's surgeon, who was to treat us, did not miss to take his full dost 
 Each guest was separately served with the above dishes on littl* 
 tables or salvers, about a foot square and a few inches high.] 
 
 " On the 31st of March, we rode out again at ten in the morn 
 ing, and went to the houses of the three governors of Nagasaki 
 two of whom were then absent on duty at Nagasaki. We pre- 
 sented them on this occasion only with a flask of Tent each, they 
 having already received their other presents at Nagasaki. We 
 were met by Tsina Kami, the one then at Jedo, just by the door of 
 his house. He was attended by a numerous retinue, and, having 
 called both our interpreters to him, he commanded them to tell us 
 his desire that we shouM make ourselves merry in his house. 
 Accordingly we were received " extraordinarily well, and desired to 
 walk about and to divert ourselves in his garden, as being now in 
 the house of a friend at Jedo, and not in the jDalace of our governor 
 and magistrate at Nagasaki.* We were treated with warm dishes 
 and tea, much after the same manner as we had been by the com- 
 missioners, and all the while civilly entertained by his own brother, 
 and several persons of quality of his friends and relations. 
 
 " Having staid about two hours, we went to Tonosama's house, 
 where we were conducted into the innermost and chief apartment, 
 and desired twice to come nearer the lattices on both sides of the 
 room. There were more ladies behind the screens here than, I 
 think, we had as yet met with in any other place. They desired 
 us, very civilly, to show them our clothes, the captain's arms, rings, 
 * tobacco-pipes, and the like, some of which were reached them 
 between or under the lattices. The person that treated us in the 
 absent governor's name, and the other gentlemen who were then pres- 
 ent in the room, entertained us likewise very civilly, and we could 
 not but take notice that, everything was so cordial that we made no 
 manner of scruple of making ourselves merry, and diverting the com- 
 pany each with a song. The magnificence of this family appeared 
 
 * See the character given of Tsina-Kami as a harsh enemy of the Dutch,, 
 or, at least, a strict disciplinarian over them ; ante, p. 263-4. 
 
AUDIENCE OF LEAVE. 377 
 
 fully by the richness and exquisiteness of this entertainment, whicn 
 was equal to that of the first commissioner's, but far beyond it in 
 courteous civility and a free, open carriage. After an hour and a 
 half we took our leave. The house of Tonosama is the furthermost 
 to the north or north-west we were to go to, a mile and a half from 
 our inn, but seated in by much the pleasantest part of the town, 
 where there is an agreeable variety of hills and shrubbery. The 
 family of Tubosama, the third governor, lives in a small, sorry 
 house near the ditch which encompasses the castle". We met here 
 but a few women behind a screen, who took up with peeping at us 
 through a few holes, which they made as they sat down. The 
 strong liquors, which we had been this day obliged to drink in larger 
 quantities than usual, being by this time got pretty much into our 
 heads, we made haste to return home, and took our leave as soon 
 as we had been treated, after the usual manner, with tea and 
 tobacco." 
 
 Two or three days after followed the audience of leave prepara- 
 tory to the return to Nagasaki. Of this Kampfer gives much the 
 fullest account in his narrative of his second visit to Jedo, which 
 we follow here. 
 
 Having proceeded to the palace as at the first audience, after 
 half an hour's stay in* the waiting-room, the " Captain Hollanda " 
 was called in before the councillors of state, who directed one of 
 the commissioners to read the usual orders to him, five in number, 
 chiefly to the effect that the Dutch should not molest any of the 
 boats or ships of the Chinese or the Lew Chewans trading to Japan, 
 nor bring in any Portuguese or priests. 
 
 These orders being read, the director was presented with thirty 
 gowns, laid on. three of the Japanese wooden stands or salvers, which 
 he crept upon all fours to receive, and in token of respect held one 
 of the gowns over his head. 
 
 This ceremony over, the Dutch were invited to stay to dinner, 
 which was served up in another room. Before each was placed a 
 small table or salver, on which lay five fresh, hot, white cakes, a3 
 tough as glue, and two hollow cakes of two spans in circumference, 
 made of flour and sprinkled with sesamum seeds. A small porce- 
 vain cup contained some bits of pickled salmon in a brown sauce, 
 by the side of which lay two wooden chop-sticks. Tea also was 
 32* 
 
378 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691—1692. 
 
 served up, but in "poor and sorry" brown dishes, and the tea itself 
 proved to be little better than hot water. Fortunately the Dutch, 
 seldom caught napping upon that point, had provided themselves, 
 before leaving home in the morning, with "a good substantial 
 breakfast ; " and, besides, they had been treated in the guard-room 
 with fresh manges and with sweet brown cakes of sugar and bean 
 flour. 
 
 While they were eating this dinner, " so far from answering to 
 the majesty and magnificence of so powerful a monarch, that a worse 
 one could not have been had at any private man's house," several 
 young noblemen busied themselves in examining their hats, coats, 
 dress, &c. Dinner over, after half an hour in the waiting-room, 
 they were conducted, through passages and galleries which they did 
 not remember to have seen before, to the hall of audience, which, by 
 a change in the position of some of the screens, presented quite a 
 new appearance. They were put in the very same uncarpeted spot 
 as at their first audience, and were again called upon, as then, to 
 answer questions, dance, sing songs and exhibit themselves. Among 
 the persons called in were two physicians, with whom Kampfer had 
 some professional conversation ; also several shaven priests, one of 
 whom had an ulcer on his shin, as to which Kampfer's opinion was 
 asked. As it was a fresh sore, and the inflammation about it slight, 
 he judged it to be of no great consequence. At the same time he 
 advised the patient not to be too familiar with saki, pretending to 
 guess by his wound, what was obvious enough from his red face and 
 nose, that he was given to drinking, — a shrewd piece of profes- 
 sional stratagem, which occasioned much laughter at the patient's 
 expense. 
 
 " This farce over, a salver was brought in for each guest, on 
 which was placed the following Japanese dishes : 1. Two small, 
 hollow loaves, sprinkled with sesamum seeds. 2. A piece of white, 
 refined sugar, striped. 3. Five candied kernels of the kai tree, 
 not unlike almonds. 4. A flat slice of cake. 5. Two cakes, made 
 of flour and honey, shaped like a tunnel, brown, thick and some- 
 what tough. 6. Two slices of a dark reddish and brittle cake, 
 made of bean flour and sugar. 7. Two slices of a rice flour cake, 
 yellow and tough. 8. Two slices of another cake or pie, of which 
 the inside seemed to be of quite a different substance from the crust 
 
PRESENTS. 379 
 
 9. A large mange boiled and filled with brown sugar, like treacle. 
 Two smaller manges, of the common bigness, dressed after the sam« 
 manner. A few of these things were eaten, and the rest, accord 
 ing to the Japanese custom, were taken home by the interpreter, 
 for whom they proved quite a load, especially as he was old and 
 rheumatic." 
 
 Having been dismissed with many ceremonies, they went next to 
 the house of the acting governor of Jedo, who received them with 
 great cordiality, and gave them an entertainment consisting of a 
 cup of tea, boiled fish with a very good sauce, oysters boiled and 
 brought in the shells, with vinegar, a dish which, it was intimated, 
 had been prepared from the known fondness of the Dutch for it ; 
 several small slices of a roasted goose ; fried fish and boiled eggs, 
 with very good liquor served up between the dishes. Thence they 
 went to the houses of the governors of Nagasaki, and returned home 
 at night thoroughly tired out, but well satisfied with their recep- 
 tion. 
 
 Meanwhile, the customary presents began to come in, which, in 
 case the director was at home, were presented and received in quite 
 a formal manner, — a speech being made by the bearer and an an- 
 swer returned, after which he was treated with tobacco, tea, sweet- 
 meats and Dutch liquors. Besides thirty gowns from the emperor, 
 ten were sent by each of the five ordinary councillors, six by each 
 of the four extraordinary councillors, five by each of the three lords 
 of the temple, and two, " pretty sorry ones," Kampfer says, by each 
 of the governors of Jedo, — in all, a hundred and twenty-three, of 
 which those given by the emperor went to the Company, and all the 
 rest to the director, constituting no inconsiderable perquisite. 
 
 It is the custom, on the return of the Dutch, when they reach 
 Miako, to take them ft see some of the principal temples. The 
 first one visited by Kampfer was the Buddhist temple and convent, 
 where the emperor lodges when he comes to visit the Dairi. The ap- 
 proach to this temple was a broad, level, gravel walk, half a mile in 
 length, lined on both sides with the stately dwellings of the ecclesi- 
 astics attached to it. Having alighted and passed a lofty gateway, 
 the visitors ascended to a large terrace, finely gravelled and planted 
 with trees and shrubs. Passing two handsome structures, they 
 ascended a beautiful stairway to a magnificent building, with a 
 
380 JAPAN. — A. D. 1691-1692. 
 
 front superior to that of the imperial palace at Jedo. In the mid- 
 dle of the outermost hall was a chapel containing a large idol with 
 curled hair, surrounded with smaller idols. On both sides were 
 some smaller and less elaborate chapels ; behind were two apart- 
 ments for the emperor's use, opening upon a small pleasure-garden 
 at the foot of a mountain, clothed with a beautiful variety of trees 
 and shrubs. Behind this garden, and on the ascent of the moun- 
 tain, was a chapel dedicated to the predecessor of the reigning em- 
 peror, who had been deified under the name of Gingosin. 
 
 " The visitors were next conducted across a square to another 
 temple, of the size of an ordinary European church, supported on 
 thirty pillars, or rather fifty-six, including those of the gallery 
 which surrounded it. These pillars were, however, but nine feet 
 high, and of wood, and, with the beams and cornices, were painted 
 some red, some yellow. The most striking feature of this building, 
 which was entirely empty within, was its bended roofs, four in num- 
 ber, one over the other, of which the lowest and largest jutted over 
 the gallery. There were said to be not less than twenty-seven 
 temples within the enclosure of this monastery. 
 
 " Up the. hill, near a quarter of a mile distant, was a large bell, 
 which Kampfer describes as rather superior in size to the smaller 
 of the two great Moscow bells (which he had seen), rough, ill-cast 
 and ill-shaped. It was struck on the outside by a large wooden 
 stick. The prior who, with a number of the monks, received and 
 entertained the Dutch visitors, was an old gentleman, of an agreea- 
 ble countenance and good complexion, clad in a violet or dark 
 purple-colored gown, with an alms bag in his hand richly embroi 
 dered with gold. 
 
 " The largest and most remarkable of the temples seen at Miako, 
 was that called Daibods, on the road to Fufimi. It was enclosed 
 by a high wall of free-stone, the front blocks being near twelve feet 
 square. A stone staircase of eight steps led up to the gateway, on 
 either side of which stood a gigantic image, near twenty-four feet 
 high, with the face of a lion, but otherwise well-proportioned, black, 
 or of a dark purple, almost naked, and placed on a pedestal six feet 
 high. That on the left had the mouth open and one of the hands 
 stretched o it. The opposite one had the mouth shut and the hand 
 close to ths body. They were said to be emblems of the two first 
 
TEMPLES AT MIAKO. 381 
 
 and chief principles of nature, the active and passive, the giving 
 and taking, the opening and shutting, generation and corruption. 
 Within the gateway were sixteen stone pillars on each side for 
 lamps, a water basin, &c. ; and on the inside of the enclosing wall 
 was a spacious walk or gallery, open towards the interior space, 
 but covered with a roof which was supported by two rows of pil- 
 lars, about eighteen feet high and twelve feet distant from each 
 other. 
 
 " Directly opposite the entrance, in the middle of the court, stood 
 the temple, much the loftiest structure which Kampfer had seen in 
 Japan, with a double roof supported by ninety-four immense wooden 
 pillars, of at least nine feet diameter, some of them of a single piece, 
 out others of several trunks put together as in the case of the masts 
 of our large ships, and all painted red." 
 
 Within, the floor was paved with square flags of free-stone, — a 
 thing not seen elsewhere. There were many small, narrow doors 
 running up to the first roof, but the interior, on account of its great 
 height, the whole up to the second roof forming but one room, was 
 very badly lighted. Nothing was to be seen within except an 
 immense idol, sitting (not after the Japanese, but after the Indian 
 manner, with the legs crossed before it) on a terete flower, sup- 
 ported by another flower, of which the leaves were turned upwards, 
 the two being raised about twelve feet from the floor. The idol 
 which was gilt all over, had long ears, curled hair, a crown on the 
 head, which appeared through the window over the first roof, with 
 a large spot not gilt on the forehead. The shoulders, so broad as 
 to reach from one pillar to another, a distance of thirty feet, were 
 naked. The breast and body were covered with a loose piece of 
 drapery. It held the right hand up, the left rested edgewise on the 
 belly. 
 
 The Quanwon temple was a structure very long in proportion to 
 its breadth. In the midst was a gigantic image of Quanwon, with 
 thirty-six arms. Sixteen black images, bigger than life, stood rOund 
 it, and on each side two rows of gilt idols with twenty arms each. 
 On either side of the temple, running from end to end, were tern 
 platforms rising like steps one behind the other, on each of which 
 stood fifty images of Quanwon, as large as life, — a thousand in all, 
 each on its separate pedestal, so arranged as to stand in rows of 
 
882 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 five, one behind the other, and all visible at the same time, eaeh 
 with its twenty hands. On the hands and heads of all these are 
 placed smaller idols, to the number of forty or more ; so that the 
 whole number, thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three, 
 according to the estimate of the Japanese, does not appear exag 
 gerated. 
 
 Klaproth* gives some curious details as to these temples, derived 
 from a Japanese Gruide Book, such as is sold to visitants. The 
 dimensions of the temple and of the image of Daibods, or the great 
 Buddha, are given with great minuteness. The body is seventy- 
 seven feet five and one fourth inches high (Ehineland measure), and 
 the entire statue with the lotus, eighty-nine feet eight and three 
 fourths inches. The head of the colossus protrudes through the 
 roof of the saloon.t 
 
 At a little distance is a chapel called Mimitsuka, or " tomb of 
 ears," in which are buried the ears and noses of the Coreans who 
 fell in the war carried on against them by Taiko-Sama, who had 
 them salted and conveyed to Japan. The grand portico of the 
 external wall of the temple is called Ni-wo-mon, " gate of the two 
 kings." On entering this vast portico, which is eighty-three and 
 one half feet high, on each side appears a colossal figure twenty- 
 two feet in height, representing the two celestial kings, Awoon and 
 Jugo, the usual porters at the Buddhist temples. Another edifice 
 placed before the apartment of the great Buddha, contains the 
 largest bell known in the world. It is seventeen feet two and one 
 half inches high, and weighs one million seven hundred thousand 
 Japanese pounds (katties), equal to two millions sixty-six thousand 
 pounds English. Its weight is consequently five times greater than 
 the great bell at Moscow. If this is the same bell described by 
 Kampfer, here is a remarkable discrepancy. 
 
 * Annals des Empereurs du Japan, p. 405, note, and in the Asiatic 
 Journal for Sept. 1831. 
 
 t The history of this image, derived from the same source, is given in a 
 note on p. 150. The roof of the temple is supported on ninety-1 wo columns, 
 each upwards of six feet in diameter. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 FURTHER DECLINE OF THE DUTCH TRADE. — DEGRADATION OF THE JAPANES1 
 COINS. — THE DUTCH THREATEN TO WITHDRAW FROM JAPAN. — RESTRICTIONS 
 
 ON THE CHINESE TRADE. PROBABLE CAUSE OF THE POLICY ADOPTED BJ 
 
 THE JAPANESE. DRAIN OF THE PRECIOUS METALS. NEW BASIS UPON 
 
 WHICH FUTURE TRADE MUST BE ARRANGED. 
 
 Notwithstanding the lamentations uttered by Kampfer in the 
 name of the Dutch factors, the trade to Japan had by no means in 
 his time reached its lowest level, and it was subjected soon after 
 his departure to new and more stringent limitations. 
 
 In the year 1696 appeared a new kind of kobang. The old 
 kobang was twenty carats eight and a half, and even ten, grains 
 fine ; that is, supposing it divided into twenty-four parts, twenty 
 parts and a half were-, fine gold.* The new kobang was thirteen 
 carats six or seven grains fine, containing, consequently, only two 
 thirds as much gold as the old one, and yet the Dutch were required 
 to receive it at the same rate of sixty-eight mas of silver. 
 
 The old kobang had returned on the coast of Coromandel a profit 
 of twenty -five per cent., the new produced a loss of fifteen or sixteen 
 per cent. ; but some of the old kobangs being still paid over at the 
 same rate as the new, some profits continued to be derived from 
 the gold, till, in 1710, the Japanese made a still more serious 
 change in their coin, by reducing the weight of the kobang nearly 
 one half, from forty-seven kanderiDS (two hundred and seventy-four 
 grains) to twenty-five kanderins (one hundred and forty-six grains), 
 which, as the Dutch were still obliged to receive these new kobangs 
 at the rate of sixty-eight mas, caused a loss of from thirty-four to 
 
 * In one thousand parts, eight hundred and fifty-four were pure gold. 
 The pure metal in our American coins is nine hundred parts in one tt ousand ; 
 or, in the old phraseology, they are twenty-one carats and twehe grains 
 fine. 
 
384 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775-1776. 
 
 thirty-six per cent. From this time the old kobangs passed as 
 double kobangs, being reckoned at twice their former weight. The 
 kobangs of the coinage of 1730 were about five per cent, better 
 than the preceding ones ; but the Dutch trade continued rapidly to 
 decline, especially after the exportation of copper was limited, in 
 1714, to fifteen thousand chests, or piculs, and, in 1721,' to ten 
 thousand piculs annually. From this time, two ships sufficed for 
 the Dutch trade. 
 
 For thirty years previous to 1743, the annual gross profits on 
 the Japanese trade had amounted to five hundred thousand florins 
 (two hundred thousand dollars), and some years to six hundred 
 thousand (two hundred and forty thousand dollars) ; but in 1743 
 they sunk below two hundred thousand florins (eighty thousand 
 dollars), which was the annual cost of maintaining the establish- 
 ment at Desima. 
 
 . Upon this occasion, a " Memoir on the Trade of Japan, and the 
 Causes of its Decline," was drawn up by Xmhoff, at that time gov- 
 ernor-general at Batavia, which affords information on the change 
 in the value of the kobang, and other matters relating to the Dutch 
 trade to Japan, not elsewhere to be found. # ~ It is apparent from 
 this memoir that the trade was not managed with the sagacity 
 which might have been expected from private merchants. The 
 cargoes were ill assorted, and did not correspond to the requisi- 
 tions of the Japanese. They, on the other hand, had repeatedly 
 offered several new articles of export, which the Company had 
 declined, because, in the old routine of their trade, no profita- 
 ble market appeared for these articles at the prices asked for 
 them. 
 
 The Dutch attempted to frighten the Japanese, by threatening to 
 close their factory altogether, but this did not. produce much effect, 
 and, since the date of Imhoff's memoir, the factory appears not to 
 have done much more than to pay its expenses. That the Japanese 
 were not very anxious for foreign trade, appears by their having 
 restricted the Chinese, previous to 1740, to twenty junks annually, 
 and at a subsequent period to ten junks. 
 
 * Having been discovered by Sir Stamford Raffles among the public docu- 
 ments at Batavia, lie published an abstract of it in the appendix B to his 
 History of Java. 
 
DRAIN OF THE PRECIOUS METALS. 385 
 
 The Dutch imagined that the above-mentioned changes in the 
 coins of Japan were made solely with" a view to their trade and 
 to curtail their profits. Baffles suggests, on the other hand, 
 that this degradation of the Japanese coins was the natural re- 
 sult of the immense export of the precious metals, which, in the 
 course of the two hundred years from 1540 to 1740, must have 
 drained Japan of specie to the value of perhaps not less than two 
 hundred millions of dollars. The exports of foreign nations, as 
 we have seen, were almost entirely metallic, and the mines of 
 Japan were by no means so productive as to be able to withstand 
 this constant drain. The export of silver was first stopped. Then 
 gold was raised to such a value as effectually to stop the exporta- 
 tion of that, and restrictions were, at the same time, put upon the 
 exportation of copper. This sagacious conjecture of Baffles is con- 
 firmed by a tract on the Origin of the Biches of Japan, written, in 
 1708, by Arrai Tsikugo-no-Kami Sama, a person of high distinc- 
 tion at the emperor's court, of which the original was brought to 
 Europe by Titsingh, and of which Klaproth has given a translation, 
 in the second volume of the Nouveau Journal Asiatique. The 
 author of this tract stales, perhaps from official documents, the 
 amount of gold and silver exported from Nagasaki, from 1611 to 
 1706, as follows : Gold, 6,192,600 kobangs ; silver, 112,268,700 
 taels. _ Of this amount, 2,397,600 kobangs, and 37,420,900 taels 
 of silver had been exported since 1646. The exports of copper 
 from 1663 to 1708 are stated at 1,114,446,700 lbs.(katties?). 
 
 This export is represented as having commenced in the time of 
 Nobunanga* when the mines of Japan had first begun to be largely 
 productive, and, previous to 1611, to have been much greater than 
 afterwards, which is ascribed by this author in part to the amounts 
 sent out of the country, by the Catholic natives, to purchase masses 
 for their souls. Much alarm is expressed lest, with the decreased 
 product of the mines, and continual exportation, Japan should be 
 
 * Yet Pinto, whose knowledge of Japan preceded the time of Nobunanga, 
 represents silver as very abundant there ; and, indeed, it seems to have been 
 this abundance which first attracted the Portuguese trade. On the whole, 
 one does not derive a very high idea, from this tract, of the extent or correct- 
 ness of the knowledge possessed by the Japanese of their own history, even 
 the more recent periods of it. 
 
386 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 reduced to poverty. Titsingh ascribes the origin of this tract to the 
 extravagance of the reigning emperor, which it was desired to check 
 by good advice ; but the exportation of the precious metals by for- 
 eigners is evidently the point aimed at. 
 
 " There goes out of the empire annually," says this writer, " about 
 one hundred and fifty thousand kobangs, or a million and a half in 
 ten years. It is, therefore, of the highest importance to the public 
 prosperity to put a stop to these exportations, which will end in 
 draining us entirely. Nothing is thought of but the procuring 
 foreign productions, expensive stuffs, elegant utensils, and other 
 things not known in the good old times. Since Grongin, gold, silver 
 and copper have been abundantly produced ; unfortunately the 
 greater part of this wealth has gone for things we could have done 
 quite as well without. The successors of Gongin ought to reflect 
 upon this, in order that the wealth of the empire may be as lasting 
 as the heavens and the earth." Ideas like those broached in this 
 tract seem to be the basis of the existing policy of Japan on the 
 subject of foreign trade ; and, independently of this, the failure of 
 the Japanese mines renders any return to the old system of the Por- 
 tuguese and Dutch traffic quite out of the question. Japan has no 
 longer gold and silver to export, and if a new trade is to be estab- 
 lished with her, it must be on an entirely new basis, the exports to 
 consist of something else than metallic products. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 ffHUNBERG's VISIT TO JAPAN. SEARCHES AND EXAMINATIONS — SMUG* 
 
 GLING. INTERPRETERS. — DESIMA. IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. UXICORN'S 
 
 HORN AND GINSENG. SOT. — THE D4ITCH AT DESIMA. JAPAXESE MIS 
 
 TRESSES. JAPAXESE WOMEN. STUDTIXG THE LANGUAGE. BOTANIZING. 
 
 CLOCKS. — NEW TEAR'S DAT. TRAMPLING OX IMAGES. — DEPARTURE 
 
 FOR JEDO. JOURXET THROUGH THE ISLAND OF XIMO. JAPANESE 
 
 HOUSES AND FURNITURE. MANUFACTURE OF PAPER. PRACTICE OF BATH 
 
 ING. SIMONOSEKI. VOTAGE TO OSAKA. CHJLDREX. FROM OSAKA 
 
 TO- MIAKO. AGRICULTURE. AXIMALS. A. D. 1775— 1776. 
 
 From the time of Kampfer's departure from Desima, of all 
 the Dutch residents and visitors there, none, for a period of up- 
 wards of eighty years, favored the world with their observations. 
 They went to Japan in pursuit of money, not to obtain knowledge, 
 either for themselves or others. 
 
 At length, in 1775, Charles Peter Thunberg, a Swedish physi- 
 cian, naturalist and traveller, to gain an opportunity of seeing 
 Japan, obtained the same official situation which Kampfer had held 
 before him. Being an enthusiastic botanist, he was sent to the 
 East by some wealthy merchants of Amsterdam to obtain new trees 
 and plants, as well for the medical garden of that city as for their 
 own private collections. Circumstances caused him to spend three 
 years at the Cape of Good Hope, whence he proceeded to Bata- 
 via. He left that port June 20, 1775, and arrived off Nagasaki 
 the 14th of the following August. From an experience of more 
 than a hundred years, the Company reckoned on the loss of one out 
 of every five ships sent to Japan, though care was taken to select 
 the best and strongest vessels.* 
 
 The searches and examinations previous to landing were th6 
 
 * This was a considerable improvement upon the state of things in the time 
 of Xavier, when every third vessel was expected to be lost. See p. 49 
 
388 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 same described by Kampfer. Hitherto it had been usual to allow 
 the captains of the vessels to pass at pleasure to and from their 
 ships without being searched ; they, with the directors of the Dutch 
 factory, being the only persons exempt from that ceremony. The 
 captains had taken advantage of this exemption to dress themselves 
 out, for the convenience of smuggling, in a showy, blue silk, silver- 
 laced coat, made very wide and large, in which dress they generally 
 made three trips a day to and from Desima, being often so loaded 
 down with goods that they had to be supported by a sailor under 
 each arm. Thunberg's captain rigged himself out in the same 
 style ; but, much to his disappointment and that of the other 
 Dutchmen, whose private goods the captains had been accustomed 
 to smuggle for a commission, the Japanese officers who boarded the 
 ship brought orders that the captain should dress like the rest ; that 
 he and the director also should be searched when they landed, and 
 that the captain should either stop on board, or, if he landed, 
 should remain on shore, being allowed to visit the ship only twice 
 during her stay. " It was droll enough," says Thunberg, "to see 
 the astonishment which the sudden reduction in the size of our bulky 
 captain excited in the major part of the ignorant Japanese, who 
 before had always imagined that all our captains were actually as 
 fat and lusty as they appeared to be." 
 
 In the year 1772, one of the Dutch ships from Batavia, disabled 
 in a violent storm, had been abandoned by her crew, who, in their 
 haste, or believing that she would speedily sink, had neglected the 
 standing order of the Company, in such cases, to set her on fire. 
 Some days after she drifted to the Japanese shore, and was towed 
 into the harbor of Nagasaki, when the Japanese found on board a 
 number of chests marked with the names of the principal Dutch 
 officers, andfull of prohibited goods, — and it was to this discovery 
 that the new order was ascribed. 
 
 The examination of the clothes and persons of all who passed to 
 and from the ship was very strict. The large chests were emptied, 
 and the sides, top and bottom, sounded to see if they were not hol- 
 low. Beds were ripped open and the feathers turned over. Iron 
 spikes were thrust Jnto the butter-tubs and jars of sweetmeats. A 
 square hole was cut in the cheeses, and a thick, pointed wire thrust 
 through them i- every direction. Even some of the eggs brought 
 
thunberg's visit. 38& 
 
 from Batavia were broken, lest they might be shams in which val 
 uables were concealed. 
 
 Formerly, according to Thunberg, the Dutch took the liberty tc 
 correct with blows the Japanese kuli employed as laborers on 
 board the ships ; but in his time this was absolutely prohibited. 
 He adds, that the respect of the Japanese for the Dutch was a 
 good deal diminished by observing " in how unfriendly and unman- 
 nerly a style they usually behave to each other, and the brutal 
 treatment which the sailors under their command frequently expe- 
 rience from them, together with the oaths, curses and blows, with 
 which the poor fellows are assailed by them." 
 
 The interpreters would seem to have adopted, since the time of 
 Kampfer (as he makes no mention of it), the practice of medicine 
 among their countrymen after the European manner. This made 
 them very inquisitive as to matters of physic and natural history, 
 and very anxious to obtain European books, which they studied 
 diligently. Kampfer speaks of the interpreters with great indigna- 
 tion as the most watchful and hateful of spies. Thunberg appears 
 to have established very good terms with them. New restrictions, 
 however, had been placed on their intercourse with the resident 
 Dutchmen, whom, to prevent smuggling, they were not allowed to 
 visit, except in company with one or two other officers. 
 
 Desima, from Thunberg's description of it, appears to have 
 altered very little since Kampfer's residence there ; though glass win r 
 dows had lately been brought from Batavia, by some of the Dutch 
 residents, as a substitute for the paper windows of the Japanese. 
 The permanent residents were now twelve or thirteen (there had 
 been but seven in Kampfer's time), besides slaves brought from 
 Batavia, of whom each Dutchman had one. 
 
 The goods sent out by the Company, at the time of Thunberg's 
 visit, were sugars (almost the only article of consumption which the 
 Japanese do not produce for themselves), elephant's teeth, sappan- 
 wood for dyeing, tin, lead, bar-iron, fine chintzes of various sorts, 
 Dutch broadcloths, shalloons, silks, cloves, tortoise-shell, China- 
 root and Costus Arabicus. The goods of private adventurers were 
 saffron, Venice treacle, Spanish liquorice, ratans, spectacles, look- 
 ing-glasses, watches, Ninsi-root or ginseng, and unicorns' horns. 
 This latter article, the horn of the Monodon monoceros, a product 
 33* 
 
390 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 of the Greenland fishery, had been lately introduced. The Japan: 
 ese ascribed to it wonderful virtues as a medicine, believing 
 it to have the power to prolong life, strengthen the animal spirits, 
 assist the memory, and cure all sorts of complaints. Thun- 
 berg had carried out as his venture thirty-seven katties (about fifty 
 pounds) of this horn, which sold for five thousand aud seventy-one 
 taels, or upwards of six thousand dollars ; so that, after paying the 
 advances made to him at Batavia^ he had a handsome surplus to 
 expend in his favorite pursuit of natural history. 
 
 The genuine Chinese ginseng [Panax quinquefolium) sold at a 
 price full as high as that of unicorn's horn. The American article, 
 being regarded as not genuine, was strictly prohibited, but was smug- 
 gled in to mix with the Chinese.* 
 
 Scientific works in the Dutch language, though not a regular 
 article of sale, might be often exchanged to advantage with the 
 interpreters. 
 
 The Company imported a quantity of silver coin, but private per- 
 sons were not allowed to do so, though a profit might have been made 
 on it. The sale by Kambang continued exactly as Kampfer had 
 described it. No Japanese money came into the hands either of 
 the Company or of individuals from the sale of their goods by 
 kambang. They only acquired a credit, which they were able to 
 exchange for Japanese articles. 
 
 The chief articles of export were copper, camphor and lackered 
 goods ; porcelain, rice, saki, soy,t were also exported. The profits 
 
 * Kampfer had seen the ginseng cultivated in gardens in Japan, but it 
 was not supposed to possess the virtues of the Chinese article. Father Jon- 
 toux, one of the Jesuit missionaries in China, employed by the emperor in 
 preparing a map of the region north of the great wall, had an opportunity to 
 see the ginseng growing wild. He sent home, in 1711, a full acccunt of it, 
 with drawings (which may be found in Voyages au JVbrd, vol. iv.), and 
 suggested, from the similarity of the climate, that the same plant might be 
 found in Canada, as it soon was by the Jesuit missionaries there. 
 
 t This sauce, used in great quantities in Japan, and exported to Batavia 
 by the Dutch, whence it has become known throughout the East Indies and 
 also in Europe, is made from the soy bean (Dolichos Soia), extensively used 
 by the Japanese in the making of soup. The soy is prepared as follows : 
 the beans are boiled till they become rather soft, when an equal quantity of 
 pounded barley or wheat is added. These ingredients being mixed, the com* 
 
IMPOKTS AND EXPORTS. 391 
 
 of this trade had been greatly curtailed. " Formerly," says Thun- 
 berg, " it was so very profitable to individuals that hardly any- 
 body but favorites were sent out as chiefs, and when these had 
 made two voyages, it was supposed that they were rich enough to 
 be able to live on the interest of their fortunes, and that, therefore, 
 they ought to make room for others. At present a chief is obliged 
 to make many voyages. His success is now no more to be envied, 
 and his profits are thought to be very inconsiderable." 
 
 Of the general enjoyments of a residence at Besima Thunberg 
 does not speak very highly. " An European that remains here is, 
 in a manner, dead and buried in an obscure corner of the globe. 
 He hears no news of any kind ; nothing relative to war or other 
 misfortunes and evils that plague and infest mankind ; and neither 
 the rumors of inland or foreign concerns delight or molest his ear. 
 The soul possesses here one faculty only, which is the judgment 
 (if, indeed, it be at all times in possession of that). The will is 
 totally debilitated, and even dead, because, to an European, there is 
 no other will than that of the Japanese, by which he must exactly 
 square his conduct. 
 
 " The European way of living is, in other respects, the same as 
 in other parts of India, luxurious and irregular. Hence, just as at 
 Batavia, we pay a visit every evening to the chief, after having 
 walked several times up and down the two streets. These evening 
 visits generally last from six o'clock till ten, and sometimes eleven 
 or twelve at night, and constitute a very disagreeable way of life, 
 fit only for such as have no other way of spending their time than 
 droning over a pipe of tobacco and a bottle." 
 
 The Europeans remaining at Desima had each two or three hand- 
 some rooms, besides the store-rooms in the lower story. These they 
 occupied without rent, the only expense being that of furnishing 
 
 pound is set away for twenty-four hours in a warm place to ferment. An 
 equal quantity of salt is then added, and twice and a half as much water. It 
 is stirred several times a day for several days, and then stands well covered 
 for two or three months, when the liquid portion is decanted, strained and 
 put in wooden casks. It is of a brown color, improves with age, but varies 
 in quality, according to the province where it is made. The Dutch of Desima 
 cork up the better qualities in glass bottles, boiling the liquor first in an iron 
 kettle, to prevent fermentation, by which it is liable to be spoiled. 
 
392 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775-1776. 
 
 them. As the winter set in, the cold, with an easterly or northerly- 
 wind, was quite piercing, and they had fires of charcoal in a larga 
 copper kettle with a broad rim. Placed in the middle of the room 
 it warmed the whole apartment for hours together. The looseness 
 of the doors and windows prevented any ill consequences from the 
 gases. As the residents all dined and supped at a common table, 
 kept at the Company's expense, their outlays did not amount to 
 much — " except," says Thunberg, " they squander away their 
 money on the fair sex, or make expensive entertainments and give 
 suppers to each other." 
 
 The account which Thunberg gives of the Japanese mistresses 
 of the Dutch is very much the same with that given by Kampfer. 
 These women, when spoken for to an officer appointed for that 
 purpose, come attended by a little serving-maid, — one of the young 
 apprentices of the houses to which they belonged, — who brought 
 daily from the town her mistress' food, made her tea, kept her 
 things in order, and ran on errands. One of these female compan- 
 ions could not be had for less than three days, but might be kept a 
 year, or even several years. The price was eight mas, or one dol- 
 lar a day, besides her maintenance and presents of silk dresses, gir- 
 dles, head-ornaments, &c. According to Thunberg, children were 
 very seldom born of these connections. He was assured, but did 
 not credit it, that if such a thing happened, the child, if a boy, 
 would be murdered ; and that, if a girl, it would be sent at fifteen 
 to Batavia ; but of this he knew of no instance. There was, in 
 his time, one girl about six years old, born of a Japanese mother, 
 living on the island with her father. Later accounts go to show 
 that Dutch Japanese children are by no means such rarities as 
 Thunberg represents * 
 
 The women painted their lips with colors, made of the Catharinus 
 tinctorius, or bastard saffron, rubbed on little porcelain bowls. If 
 laid on very thin, the lips appeared red ; if thick, it gave them a 
 
 * The murdering of the children may be explained by the following pas- 
 sage from one of the letters of Cocks, the English factor, written at Firando, 
 in December, 1614 : " James Turner, the fiddling youth, left a wench with 
 
 child here, but the w e, the mother, killed it so soon as it was born, 
 
 although I gave her two taels in plate [silver] before to nourish it, because 
 she should not kill it, it being an ordinary thing here." 
 
THE DUTCH AT DESIMA. 393 
 
 vi)let hue, esteemed by the Japanese as the more beautiful. Tha 
 married women were distinguished by blacking their teeth with a 
 fcetid mixture, so corrosive that the lips had to be protected from 
 it while it was laid on. It eat so deeply into the teeth that it took 
 several days and much trouble to scrape it away. "To me at 
 least," says Thunberg, " a wide mouth with black shining teeth had 
 an ugly and disagreeable appearance." The married women dis- 
 tinguished themselves also by pulling out their eyebrows ; and an- 
 other distinction was that they knotted their girdles before, and the 
 single women behind. 
 
 Thunberg noticed that venereal diseases, which he ascribed to 
 European intercourse, were very common,* and he congratulated 
 himself on the questionable service of having introduced the mercu- 
 rial treatment. 
 
 As he had plenty of leisure and little taste for the Dutch fashion 
 of killing time, he endeavored to find more rational and profitable 
 employment. The residents were still allowed native servants, who, 
 though not interpreters, had learned to speak the Dutch language. 
 But the Dutch were strictly prohibited from learning the Japanese ; 
 and though the interpreters were sufficiently well inclined, Thun- 
 berg encountered many difficulties in his study of that language. 
 It was only after many inquiries that he found at last an old dic- 
 tionary, in the Latin, Portuguese and Japanese, in quarto, contain- 
 ing nine hundred and six pages. The title-page was gone, but the 
 book purported to have been compiled by the joint labors of the 
 Jesuits at Japan, as well European as natives. It belonged to one 
 of the interpreters, who possessed it as a legacy from his ancestors, 
 and he refused to sell it for any price.! 
 
 Afterwards, at Jedo, he saw a book in long quarto, about an 
 inch thick, printed on Japanese paper, entirely in Japanese charac- 
 ters, except the title-page, which bore the imprint of the Jesuits, 
 with the date, Nagasaki, a. d. 1598. 
 
 " Through incapacity in some and indolence in others," the Dutch 
 possessed no vocabulary of the Japanese, and all the knowledge 
 the Dutch residents had of it did not go beyond calling by name a 
 
 * Cocks also had noticed their existence a century and a half earlier, 
 t This was doubtless the lexicon printed at Amakusa in 1595. See notf 
 p. 125, also Appendix A. 
 
6'94 JAPAN. A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 few familiar articles. Thunberg has annexed to his Travels a shori 
 Japanese vocabulary, but he does not appear to have made any 
 great progress in the language. 
 
 "With much difficulty he obtained, about the beginning of Febru- 
 ary, leave to botanize.* Every excursion cost him sixteen or eigh- 
 teen taels, as he was obliged to feast from twenty to thirty Japanese 
 officials, by whom he was always attended. On the neighboring 
 hills he noticed many burying-grounds, containing tombstones of 
 various forms, sometimes rough, but more frequently hewn, with 
 letters, sometimes gilt, engraved upon them. Before these stones 
 were placed vessels, made of large bamboos, containing water, with 
 branches of flowers. 
 
 He also noticed, both around Nagasaki and afterwards on his 
 journey to Jedo, the pits, or rather large earthen jars, sunk by the 
 road-side for the collection of manure, both liquid and solid. To 
 the foetid exhalations from these open pits, and to the burning of 
 charcoal without chimneys, he ascribed the red and inflamed eyes 
 very common in Japan. In the gardens he saw growing the com- 
 mon red beet, the carrot, fennel, dill, anise, parsley, and asparagus ; 
 leeks, onions, turnips, radishes, lettuce, succory, and endive. Long 
 ranges of sloping ground, at the foot of the mountains, were planted 
 with the sweet potato. Attempts were also made to cultivate the 
 common potato, but with little success. Several kinds of yams 
 (JDioscorecB) grew wild in the vicinity of Nagasaki, of which one 
 species was used for food, and, when boiled, had a very agreeable 
 taste. t Buckwheat, Windsor beans (Viciafaba), several species of 
 French beans (Pkascolus), and peas (Pisum sativum), were com- 
 monly cultivated ; also, two kinds of cayenne pepper (Capsicum), 
 introduced probably by the Portuguese. Tobacco was also raised, 
 for the use and the name of which the Japanese were indebted to 
 
 * A precedent of a similar permission, formerly granted to the medical 
 men of the factory, was found, but, upon a critical examination of Thun- 
 berg's commission, he appeared to be a surgeon, whereas he to whom per- 
 mission had formerly been granted had been surgeon's mate, and it took 
 three months to get over this difficulty, and to persuade the Japanese that 
 these two officers were in substance the same. 
 
 t This species, the Dioscorea Japonica (confounded sometimes with the 
 sweet jptato), has been lately introduced into the United States. 
 
VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS. 895 
 
 the Portuguese. He observed, also, hemp, the Aeoms, strongly 
 aromatic ; a kind of ginger (Amomum mioga) ; the Mentha pipe- 
 rita ; the Alcea rosea, and Mafoa Mauritiana, cultivated for their 
 flowers ; the Celastrus alatvs, a branch of which, stuck at a young 
 lady's door, is thought by the Japanese to have the power of making 
 her fall in love with you; the common juniper-tree; the bamboo, 
 and the box ; also, the ivy; the China-root (Smilax China); wild 
 figs, with small fruit like plums (Fiscus pumila and erecta) ; the 
 pepper bush (Figara peperita) ; a species of madder {Rulia cor- 
 data), and several species of the Pologomtm, used for dying. Also, 
 two species of nettles, the bark of which furnished cordage and 
 thread, and the seeds of one species an oil. The yellow flowers of 
 the colewort [Brassica orientalis), which was largely cultivated for 
 the oil afforded by its seeds, presented through the spring a beauti- 
 ful appearance. This oil was used for lamps. Oil for food, used, 
 however, but sparingly, was expressed frcm the Sesamum oriental^ 
 and the mustard seed. Solid oils, for candles, were obtained from 
 i.he nuts of the varnish-tree [Rhus vernix), and from those of the 
 Rhus snccedanea, the camphor-tree, the Melea azedarach, and the 
 Cammelia sasanqua* 
 
 * Kampfer, who describes the Cammelia under the Japanese name of 
 Tsubaki, speaks of it as a large shrub, almost a tree. Thunberg represents 
 it as attaining the size of a large tree, exceedingly common in groves and 
 gardens, and a very great favorite, as well for its polished, evergreen leaves, 
 as from the size, beauty and variety, of its blossoms, which appear from 
 April to October, single and red in the wild ones, but double, and of several 
 colors, red, purple, white, &c, in the cultivated varieties, of which the 
 Japanese assured Kampfer there were several hundreds. Siebold describes 
 the wild kind as a small tree, growing in clumps and thickets, often with 
 many shoots from the same root, from fifteen to twenty feet high ; while a 
 much larger size is attained by the cultivated kinds. The name of Cammelia 
 was given to the genus by Linnaeus, in honor of George Joseph Kamel, a 
 Jesuit missionary, who sent to Ray descriptions of the plants of the Philip- 
 pine Islands, published by him at the end of his " History of Plants." The 
 single-flowering variety was introduced into England, about 1739, by Lord 
 Petre, probably from China, of which it is a native, in common with quite a 
 number of plants, to which the specific epithet Japanese has been applied. 
 As late as 1788 (as appears from Curtis' Botanical Magazine, vol. I.) 
 it was very rare and costly. Down to that time it had been treated as a 
 stove-plant, but soon after, on Curtis' suggestion, it w:^s introduced into 
 
396 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 In striking fire a tinder is used made of the woolly part of the 
 leaves of the common wormwood. The famous moxa, spoken of 
 hereafter, is a finer preparation of the same root. Instead of soap 
 the meal of a species of bean is employed. 
 
 The bark of the SJcimmi, or anise-tree (a near relation of the 
 mangolia tribe, and whose flowers and leaves are much employed in 
 religious ceremonies), is used as a time-measurer. A box, a foot 
 long, is filled with ashes, in which are marked furrows, in parallel 
 lines, strewed with fine powder of this bark. The lid being closed, 
 with only a small hole left to supply air, the powder is set on fire 
 at one end, and consumed very slowly, and the hours, marked be- 
 forehand on these furrows, are proclaimed in the day-time by strik- 
 ing the bells in the temples, and in the night by the watch striking 
 together two pieces of wood. Another method of measuring time 
 is by burning slow match, divided into knots to mark the hours. 
 The Japanese also have a clock, the mechanism of which is described 
 in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 " The first of January, according to custom," says Thunberg, 
 " most of the Japanese that had anything to do at the Dutch fac- 
 tory, came to wish us a happy new year. Dressed in their holiday 
 clothes, they paid their respects to the director, who invited them 
 to dine with him. The victuals were chiefly dressed after the Euro- 
 pean manner, and, consequently, but few of the dishes were tasted 
 by the Japanese. Of the soup they all partook, but of the other 
 dishes, such as roasted pigs, hams, salad, cakes, tarts, and other 
 pastries, they ate little or nothing, but put on a plate a little of 
 every dish, and, when it was full, sent it home, labelled with the 
 owner's name ; and this was repeated several times. Salt beef, and 
 the like, which the Japanese do not eat, were set by, and used as a 
 medicine. The same may be said of the salt butter, of which I 
 
 conservatories, of which it soon became the pride, and was even found hardy 
 enough to bear the winter in the open air. Previous to 1806, a number of 
 varieties were imported from China ; many others were produced in Europe, 
 and already, by 1825, these varieties had become very numerous (see Botan- 
 ical Magazine, vols. xl. and lvi.). The Ca?nmelia sasanqua is smaller, 
 with smaller leaves and flowers, very closely resembling the tea-plant ; and, 
 in packing their teas, the Chinese are in the habit of putting some of the 
 blossoms into the chests. It is extensively cultivated for its oil, in China a» 
 Well as in Japan. 
 
JOURNEY TO COURT. 397 
 
 was frequently desired to cut a slice for some of the company. It 
 is made into pills, and taken daily in consumptions and other dis- 
 orders. After dinner, warm saki was handed round, which was 
 drank out of lackered wooden cups. 
 
 " On this festive occasion, the director invited from the town 
 several handsome girls, partly for the purpose of serving out the 
 saki, and partly to dance and bear the girls company who were 
 already on the island. After dinner, these girls treated the Japan- 
 ese to several of their own country messes, placed on small square 
 tables, which were decorated with an artificial fir-tree, the leaves 
 of which were made of green silk, and, in several places, sprinkled 
 over with white cotton, in imitation of the winter's snow. The 
 girls never presented the saki standing, but, after their own fashion, 
 sitting. In the evening they danced, and about five o'clock the 
 company took their leave." 
 
 The 19th of February, 1776, on which fell the beginning of the 
 Japanese year, was celebrated according to the Japanese custom, 
 all of them going visiting, dressed up in their holiday clothes, and 
 wishing their neighbors joy ; and, indeed, this interchange of con- 
 gratulations is kept up, more or less, through the first month. 
 
 On the two last days of the year a general settlement of accounts 
 takes place. Fresh credit is then given for six months, when a 
 new settlement takes place. The rate of interest was high, ranging 
 from eighteen to twenty per cent. Thunberg was told that, after 
 new-year's day, there was no right to demand settlement of the last 
 year's accounts. 
 
 Shortly after the Japanese new-year, took place the trampling 
 of images, which ceremony, according to the information obtained 
 by Thunberg, was still performed by all the inhabitants of Nagasaki, 
 exactly as in Kampfer's time. 
 
 On the 4th of March the director set out for the emperor's 
 court, accompanied, as usual, by the secretary of the factory, and 
 by Thunberg as physician. In Kampfer's day these two latter 
 persons had been obliged to make the journey on horseback, ex- 
 posed to cold, rain, and all the inclemencies of the weather. Since 
 then they had obtained the privilege of travelling in norimons, 
 equally with the director. Dr. Thunberg seems to have been well 
 satisfied with his vehicle, which he describes as both handsome and 
 34 
 
398 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775-1776. 
 
 convenient. Each norimon traveller had with him a bottle of red 
 wine, and another of Dutch ale, taken daily from the large stock 
 provided for the journey, and preferred by the Europeans to tea, 
 which they regarded as a " great relaxer of the stomach." Each 
 traveller had also an oblong lackered box, containing " a double 
 slice of bread and butter." In order to support the dignity of the 
 Dutch East India Company, the bed equipage which they carried 
 with them consisting of coverlids, pillows, and mattresses, was cov- 
 ered with the richest open-work velvets and silks. Their retinue, 
 on horseback and on foot, was numerous and picturesque. They 
 were received everywhere with the honor and respect paid to the 
 princes of the land : and, besides, says Thunberg, were so well 
 guarded " that no harm could befall us, and, at the same time, so 
 well attended that we had no more care upon our minds than a 
 sucking child ; the whole of our business consisting in eating and 
 drinking, or in reading or writing for our amusement, in sleeping, 
 dressing ourselves, and being carried about in our norimons." 
 
 At setting out, each of the three Dutchmen received from the 
 purveyor fifty taels, fox; their individual expenses. This was the 
 first Japanese money which Thunberg had seen, and this, with other 
 sums doled out to them from time to time, was chiefly spent in 
 presents to their attendants. The disbursement on this score, at 
 starting, amounted to ten taels each. 
 
 In the early part of their journey, they followed a somewhat 
 different road from Kampfer's, all the way by land, not crossing 
 either the bay of Omura, nor that of Simabara. They passed, how- 
 ever, through Swota, as Kampfer had done, famous for its large 
 water-jars, and visited the hot springs in that neighborhood, and 
 also Sanga, capital of the province of Fisen, remarkable for its 
 handsome women, its rice and its fine porcelain. The roads were 
 found such as Kampfer had described them. Proceeding onward, 
 still by Kampfer's route, they reached Kokura on the ninth of 
 March. The following description of Japanese houses corresponds 
 sufficiently well with that of Kampfer, while it gives a rather more 
 distinct, and somewhat less flattering, idea of them. " The houses 
 are very roomy and commodious, and never more than two stories — 
 at most twenty feet — high, of which the lower one is inhabited, 
 and the upper serves for lofts and garrets, and is seldom occupied 
 
DWELLING-HOUSES. 399 
 
 The mode of building in this country is curious and peculiar. Every 
 house occupies a great extent of ground, and is built in general of 
 wood and plaster, and white-washed on the outside so as to look ex- 
 actly like stone. The beams all lie horizontal or stand perpendicular. 
 Between these beams, which are square and far from thick, bamboos 
 are interwoven, and the space filled up with clay, sand and lime. 
 The roofs are covered with tiles of a singular make, very thick and 
 heavy. The more ordinary houses are covered with chips [shingles], 
 on which are frequently laid heavy stones to secure them. In the 
 villages and meaner towns I sometimes saw the sides of the houses, 
 especially behind, covered with the bark of trees, which was secured 
 by laths nailed on it to prevent the rain from damaging the wall. 
 
 " The whole house makes but one room, which can be divided 
 according as it may be found necessary, or thought proper, into 
 many smaller ones. This is done by moving slight partitions, con- 
 sisting of wooden frames, pasted over with thick painted paper, 
 which slide with great ease in grooves made in the beams of the 
 floor and roof for that purpose. Such rooms were frequently par- 
 titioned off for us and our retinue, during our journey ; and when 
 a larger apartment was wanted for a dining-room, or any other 
 purpose, the partitions were in an instant taken away. One could 
 not see, indeed, what was done in the next room, but one fre- 
 quently overheard the conversation that passed there. 
 
 " In each room there are two or more windows, which reach from 
 the ceiling to within two feet of the floor. They consist of light 
 frames which may be taken out, put in, and slid behind each other, 
 at pleasure, in two grooves made for this purpose in the beams 
 above and below them. They are divided by slender rods into 
 panes of a parallelogrammatic form, sometimes to the number of 
 forty, and pasted over on the outside with fine white paper, which 
 is seldom if ever oiled, and admits a great deal of light, but pre- 
 vents any one from seeing through it. The roof always projects a 
 great way beyond the house, and sometimes has an addition which 
 covers a small projecting gallery that stands before each window. 
 From this little roof go slanting inwards and downwards, several 
 quadrangular frames, within which hang blinds made of rushes, 
 which may be drawn up and let down, and serve not only to hinder 
 people that -?<ass by from looking into the house, but chiefly when it 
 
400 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 rains to prevent the paper windows from being damaged. There 
 are no glass windows here ; nor have I observed mother-of-pearl 
 or muscovy talc [mica, or isinglass] used for this purpose. 
 
 " The houses have neither the elegant appearance nor the con- 
 venience and comfort of ours in Europe. The rooms are not so 
 cheerful and pleasant, nor so warm in the winter, neither are they 
 so safe in case of fire, nor so durable. Their semi-transparent paper 
 windows, in particular, spoil the houses, as well in their inside as 
 outside, appearance. Neither chimneys nor stoves are known 
 throughout the whole country, although the cold is very intense, 
 and they are obliged to make fires in their apartments from Octo- 
 ber to March. The fires are made in copper kettles, of various 
 sizes, with broad projecting edges. This mode of firing is liable, 
 however, to this inconvenience, that the charcoal sometimes smokes, 
 in consequence of which the apartment becomes dirty and black, and 
 the eyes of the company suffer exceedingly. 
 
 " The floors are always covered with mats made of a fine species 
 of rush {Juncus effusus), cultivated in low spots for that purpose, 
 and interwoven with rice straw. These mats are from three to four 
 inches thick, and of the same size throughout the country, viz., two 
 yards long and one broad. The insicles of the houses, both ceiling 
 and walls, are covered with a handsome, thick paper, ornamented 
 with various flowers. These hangings are either green, yellow or 
 white ; and sometimes embellished with silver and gold. As the 
 paper is greatly damaged by the smoke in winter, it is renewed 
 every third or fifth year.* 
 
 * The Japanese paper, as well for writing and printing as for the household 
 uses to which it is so extensively put, is manufactured from the bark of the 
 young twigs of the paper mulberry (Jlforus papyrifira). Kampfer has 
 given a particular account of it in the appendix to his work. That account, 
 which, now that so many experiments are on foot for the manufacture of 
 paper, may suggest some useful hints, is abridged by Thunberg as follows : 
 
 " After the tree has shed its leaves in the month of December, they cut off 
 the young shoots about three feet in length, which they tie up in bundles and 
 boil in a lye of ashes, standing inverted in a copper kettle till the bark is so 
 shrunk that half an inch of the woody part is seen bare at the ends. If the 
 twigs grow ry before they can be boiled, they are first soaked in water for 
 four-and-twenty hours. When sufficiently boiled they are taken out and 
 the bark cut lengthwise and stripped oft' After being soaked in water. for 
 
HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE. 401 
 
 " The furniture in this country is as simple as the style of build* 
 ing. Neither cupboards, bureaus, sofas, beds, tables, chairs, clocks, 
 looking-glasses, nor anything else of the kind, is to be seen. To the 
 greater part of these the Japanese are utter strangers. Their soft 
 floor-mats serve them for chairs. A small table, or rather salver, 
 about twelve inches square and four high, is set before each person 
 in company at every meal, of which there are three a day. The 
 food (rice, soup and fish being the principal articles) is served in 
 lackered wooden cups. Most other nations .of the East sit with 
 their legs laid across before them — the Chinese and Japanese lay 
 their feet under their bodies, and make a chair of their heels. 
 When the hour of rest approaches, a soft mattress, stuffed with cot- 
 three hours, the exterior black skin and the green part beneath it is scraped 
 off with a knife, and the bark is then sorted into qualities ; that "which is a 
 full year's growth makes the best paper, and the less mature an inferior 
 quality. Thus prepared and sorted, it is again boiled in a clear lye, being 
 perpetually stirred, and fresh lye supplied to make up for the evaporation ; 
 and this process is continued till the bark is dissolved, as it were, separating 
 into flocks and fibres. It must then be washed — a process requiring care and 
 judgment, as, if not carried for enough, the paper will be coarse, and if too 
 far, thin and slazy. This is done in a running stream, by means of a sieve 
 containing the material, which is perpetually stirred till it is diluted into a 
 delicate, soft pap. For the finer kinds this washing is repeated, a piece of 
 linen being substituted for the sieve, to prevent the finer parts from being 
 carried away. After being washed, it is beaten with sticks of hard wood, on 
 a wooden table, till it is brought to a pulp, which if put into water will dis- 
 solve and disperse like meal. 
 
 " It is then mixed in a tub with a clammy infusion, obtained by soaking 
 rice in cold water, and with another mucilaginous infusion, obtained in the 
 like manner from the root of Oreni (Hibiscus manihot). This mixture, 
 upon which much depends, and the proportions of which vary with the sea- 
 son of the year, succeeds best in a narrow tub, and requires perpetual stir- 
 ring. The whole is then put into a larger tub, from which the sheets are 
 taken out and put between mats made of delicate grass straw, and laid one 
 upon another in heaps, being pressed at first lightly, but gradually harder 
 and harder, till the water is squeezed out. They are then laid upon a board 
 to dry in the sun ; after which they are packed in bundles for sale and 
 use. 
 
 "For the coarser kinds of paper other sorts of bark are sometimes used. 
 
 " The Japanese paper is very close and strong. It will bear being twisted 
 into ropes, and is occasionally used even for dresses." 
 34* 
 
402 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 ton, is spread out on the mats. The Japanese have no pillows 
 instead of which they use oblong lackered pieces of wood. With 
 the above apparatus for sleeping, the Japanese bed-chamber is put 
 in order, and he himself up and dressed, in the twinkling of an eye ; 
 as, in fact, scarcely a longer time is requisite for him to throw the 
 gown over him, whieh serves for dress by day and bed-clothes at 
 night, and to gird it round his waist. 
 
 " Though mirrors do not decorate the walls, they are in general 
 use at the toilet, made not of glass, but of a composition of copper 
 and zinc highly polished, and fixed obliquely in a stand of wood 
 made for that purpose. Cleanliness is a constant object with these 
 people, and not a day passes in which they do not wash themselves 
 whether they are at home or on a journey. In all towns and vil 
 lages, inns and private houses, there are baths." He adds, how- 
 ever, what goes rather against this alleged cleanliness, that as the 
 poor, to save expense, are accustomed to use water in which others 
 haye repeatedly bathed, they are apt in that way to .take infectious 
 disorders. Neither do their open manure vaults, placed by the road- 
 sides and in the very fronts of their houses, agree so well with this 
 eulogy. 
 
 At Kokura the Dutch bespoke, against their return, rice and 
 charcoal for the factory at Desima. Having crossed to Simonoseki, 
 they embarked, on the 12th of March, in a large Japanese junk, for 
 Osaka ; but, having made less, than half the voyage, they encoun- 
 tered contrary winds, which drove them a long distance back, and 
 detained them for near three weeks. The weather was so cold as 
 to make fires comfortable, and colds and catarrhs, endemical to 
 Japan from the changeability of its climate, were Very prevalent. 
 All this time they slept on board, but had several times an oppor- 
 tunity to go on shore to amuse themselves at the inns and temples, 
 the Japanese sailors being always anxious to land in order to 
 bathe. 
 
 The country all along this coast was mountainous, which was the 
 reason of going by sea instead of by land, the land road being very 
 difficult. This coast seemed, nevertheless, to be highly cultivated, 
 the mountains in many places resembling beautiful gardens. 
 
 At the places where they landed, the children were very numer- 
 ous. " I observed," says Thunberg, " that the chastisement of chil< 
 
MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN. 403 
 
 dren was very moderate. I very seldom heard them rebuked 01 
 scolded, and hardly ever saw them flogged or beaten, either in pri- 
 vate families or on board the vessels ; while, in more civilized and 
 enlightened nations, these compliments abound.* In the schools 
 one might hear the children read all at once, and so loud as almost 
 to deafen one." 
 
 Whenever the Japanese went on shore, they killed geese and 
 ducks for the Dutchmen to eat ; but at sea they had scruples about 
 killing them, though in fine weather the Chinese teal (Anas gale- 
 riculata), and several sorts of ducks, fairly covered the water, so 
 as to look at a distance like great islands. But, though scrupulous 
 themselves, they made no objections to Thunberg's killing them ; 
 though, not being allowed the use of fire-arms, it does not appear 
 how he did it. 
 
 At length, on the 7th of April, after a disagreeable and danger- 
 ous passage of twenty-six days, they reached the harbor of Fiogo, 
 whence the next day, partly by land and partly in small boats, 
 they proceeded to Osaka. Here each of the travellers disbursed 
 sixteen taels in presents to the captain and crew of the vessel, for 
 the hire of which the sum of four hundred and eighty taels was paid 
 oy the East India Company. They staid at Osaka only a single 
 night, during which they bespoke from some merchants, who visited 
 them t with samples, several articles, such as insects of copper, arti- 
 ficial trees varnished, fans of various kinds, writing paper, paper 
 hangings, &c. They left Osaka early in the morning, by torch- 
 light, and, following the same road which Kiimpfer had taken, reached 
 
 * Caron, whose opportunities of knowledge upon this point were much 
 superior to those of Thunberg or any subsequent observer, is very explicit 
 upon this point. " The parents educate their children with great care. 
 They are not forever bawling in their ears, and they never use them roughly. 
 When they cry they show a wonderful patience in quieting them, knowing 
 well that young children are not of an age to profit by reprimands. This 
 method succeeds so well, that Japanese children, ten or twelve years old, 
 behave with all the discretion and propriety of grown people. They are not 
 sent to school till they are seven or eight years old, and then they aie not 
 forced to study things for which they have no inclination." 
 
 t In Kampfer's time no personal intercourse was alloAved with those of 
 whom articles were bought at Osaka, Miako and Jedo. In this respect there 
 nould seem to have been a relaxation. 
 
404 JAPAN. — A. D. 1Y7 5—1776. 
 
 Miako at night. " Except in Holland," says Thunberg, " I nevef 
 made so pleasant a journey as this, with regard to the beauty 
 and delightful ■ appearance of the country. Its population, too, 
 and cultivation, exceed all expression. The whole country, on 
 both sides of us, as far as we could see, was nothing but a fertile 
 field, and the whole of our long day's journey extended through 
 villages, of which one began where the other ended." 
 
 The farmers were now preparing their lands for rice. The fields, 
 by means of a raised border, lay almost entirely under water. This 
 was the case even with those sides of the hills intended for rice 
 They were laid out in terraces, the water collected on the higher 
 grounds being regulated by means of walls or dams, so as to be let 
 on or shut off at pleasure. There were, also, reservoirs, constructed 
 to retain the contents of the flooded streams, against occasions of 
 drought. The rice was sown first very close and thick, and when 
 about six inches high was transplanted into the fields, in tufts of 
 several plants, placed about six inches apart. This was done by the 
 women, who waded about in water at least six inches deep, the men 
 having first turned up the ground with a hoe. Beautiful white 
 herons followed the laborers, and cleared the fields of worms. The 
 rice thus planted was reaped in November. 
 
 Fields of wheat, barley (used to feed the horses), buckwheat, East 
 India kale (Brassica orientalis), and mustard (the two latter for 
 oil), were also seen. These crops, planted in November or Decem- 
 ber, and ripe in May or June, were in beds about a foot broad, and 
 separated from each other by a deep furrow or trench of about the 
 same breadth. Sometimes they were planted across these narrow 
 beds, and sometimes in two rows, lengthwise. Thunberg noticed 
 that when the ear was about to put forth, the plants being grown to 
 the height of a foot, the earth was taken out from the intervening 
 trenches, and drawn up to the roots of the plants. About the 
 same time, or a little earlier, the liquid manure collected in the 
 jars already described, and mingled with all sorts of refuse, was 
 carried out by the farmers, in large pails, and poured with a ladle 
 on the roots of the plants ; a method which avoids the waste incident 
 to spreading the manure on unplanted fields, to be dried up by the 
 gun, or to lose by evaporation its volatile salts and oily particles. 
 
 The fields were kept so free of weeds as to afford, much to Thun' 
 
DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 405 
 
 berg's disappointment, very little chance to botanize. Animals 
 were little used in agriculture. Only such of the rice fields 
 as lay low, and quite under water, were ploughed by oxen — cows 
 being kept for draft and breeding only, and never milked. The 
 only wheel carriages seen were a few carts, and these only in and 
 about Miako, some with three wheels,* one before the other two, 
 and some two-wheeled. These carts were long and narrow, the 
 wheels, some with spokes and fellies, but without any tire, except a 
 rope tied about them, and others of a solid piece, sawed from a log. 
 They were drawn by an ox, by cows, or a buffalo. Horses were 
 chiefly for the use of their princes, though occasionally employed 
 by others for travelling and carrying burdens. They were not 
 numerous, but Thunberg seems to make rather a close estimate in 
 saying that all Japan has scarcely as many horses as a single 
 province of Sweden. There was no occasion for meadows or pas- 
 tures, the cattle and horses being fed at home all the year, so that 
 all the land, not too steep or rocky for cultivation, was devoted to 
 the raising of crops ; nor did the fields require fences. All the 
 manure of the animals kept was carefully preserved, old men and 
 children following the horses of travellers, with a shell fastened to 
 the end of a stick, and a basket in which to put what they collected. 
 Of course the small number of domestic animals made it the more 
 necessary to resort to the other means of providing manure already 
 noticed. 
 
 A few swine were to be seen, but only in the neighborhood of 
 Nagasaki. There were no sheep nor goats. A supply of these 
 animals, and also of cattle and hogs, for the Dutch at Desima, was 
 brought annually from Batavia. Dogs, " the only idlers in the 
 country," were kept from superstitious motives, and cats were the 
 general favorites of the women. Hens and ducks were kept about 
 the houses, chiefly for their eggs, of which the Japanese make great 
 use, boiled hard and chopped into small pieces. 
 
 * Kampfer had noticed similar three-wheeled carts, made very low, and 
 employed in drawing stone from a quarry. In unloading, the single wheel 
 was taken off, when the cart formed an inclined plain. 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 JAPANESE MERCHANTS. JOURNEY FROM MIAKO TO JEDO. — BOTANY OF THK 
 
 MOUNTAINS. RAINY WEATHER. COVERINGS FOR THE HEAD AND FEET. 
 
 JEDO. ASTRONOMERS AND PHYSICIANS. ACUPUNCTURE. MOXA. — 
 
 OTHER JAPANESE REMEDIES. — METHOD OF WEARING THE HAIR VISITS TO 
 
 THE EMPEROR AND HIS CHIEF OFFICERS. JAPANESE DRESS. BOOKS AND 
 
 MAPS. SUCCESSION OF EMPERORS. DEPARTURE FROM JEDO. GNATS. 
 
 FIRE-FLIES. THRESHING. VEGETABLES AND FRUITS. CONDITION OF 
 
 THE JAPANESE FARMER. — CASTING COPPER. ACTORS AND DANCERS. 
 
 THUNBERG'S OPINION OF THE JAPANESE. A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 The travellers remained four days at Miako, during which the 
 accustomed visits were paid to the chief justice and to the two 
 governors. A new advance of money was also made to them here 
 Thunberg's share being three hundred taels, in gold kobangs, 
 to be charged against the kambang money standing to his credit 
 from the sale of his private goods, and to be laid out in the pur- 
 chase of such rarities and merchandise as he chose. Here, again, 
 the Dutch were waited on by the merchants, from whom they be- 
 spoke several articles in sowas and lackered ware, to be ready 
 against their return. Of these Japanese merchants, Thunberg ob- 
 serves that they are the only persons in the country, except the 
 emperor, who can become rich, and that they sometimes accumulate 
 very considerable sums ; but they cannot, as in Europe, purchase 
 titles, or raise themselves by their money to a higher rank. The 
 position of the trading and manufacturing class seems, indeed, 
 almost precisely the same with that which they held in Europe dur- 
 ing the prevalence of feudal ideas. 
 
 Commerce, however, was free from any embarrassments by tolls 
 or duties, and a considerable internal trade, of which Miako wan 
 the centre (several annual fares being held there), was carried on* 
 in tea, silk goods, porcelain, rice, lackered ware, &c. 
 
thunberg's botanical observations. 407 
 
 Setting out from Miako on the fourteenth of April, the travellers, 
 in passing lake Oitz, were treated to a delicious fish, of the salmon 
 kind, the largest of which seen by Thunberg weighed about ten 
 pounds. Finding, in the course of their journey, that this species 
 of fish was often served up, they ordered some to be smoked, against 
 their return ; but they did not prove equal to European salmon, 
 either in size, fatness, or style of curing. The country still contin- 
 ued as populous as before. In the villages were many almond, 
 peach and aprieot trees, which now presented a very beautiful 
 appearance, blossoming on the bare branches, before the leaves 
 unfolded. These, as well as the plum, cherry, apple and pear* trees, 
 sometimes bore double flowers, upon which the Japanese put a high 
 value. 
 
 The road having brought them to the sea-shore, Thunberg ob- 
 served the Fucus saccharinus, called by the Japanese, Komb, or 
 Koku, or sometimes Kosi. Cleansed and dried, it is eaten, 'though 
 very tough, either boiled or raw — in the latter case, cut into strips, 
 which are folded in little squares, a considerable number of which 
 are usually strewed on the little tables, or salvers, on which the 
 complimentary presents, so common with the Japanese, are offered. 
 These presents, generally of trifling value, are always accompanied 
 with a complimentary paper (so called), folded in a peculiar man- 
 ner, and having slips of this fucus pasted to both ends of it. 
 
 The mountain, Fusi, was now in sight, and presently the moun- 
 tainous tract of Facone was entered, separating the bays of Toto- 
 mina and Jeclo. It took a day to cross these mountains, which 
 were covered with bushes and forest-trees, and were the only hills 
 in Japan, except those close to Nagasaki, which Thunberg was per- 
 mitted freely to wander over and examine. " This day," he says, 
 " I was seldom in my norimon ; but in the same degree as I eased 
 my bearers of their burden, I rendered the journey troublesome to 
 the interpreters, and, more particularly, to the inferior officers, who, 
 
 * Kampfer says that the European apple-tree is unknown in Japan, and 
 that they have only one kind of pears, such as we call winter pears. The 
 fruit grows to a great size, but must be cooked to be eaten. Cherry-trees 
 are cultivated only for the flowers, as apricots and plums often are, the blos- 
 soms being brought by art to be as big as roses. Golownin, however, ate 
 apples in northern Japan, though of an inferior quality. 
 
408 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 by rotation, were to follow my steps. I was not allowed,, indeed, 
 to go far out of the road, but having been previously used to run 
 up rocks in the African mountains, I frequently got to a consider- 
 able distance before my anxious and panting followers, and thereby 
 gained time to gather a great many of the most curious and scarcest 
 plants, which had just began to flower, and which I put in my 
 handkerchief." 
 
 Among the trees growing in this tract was the Thuya dolehrata, 
 planted everywhere by the road-side, tall, straight, and with leaves 
 of silver- white on their under sides — in Thunberg's opinion the hand- 
 somest of the fir tribe. There were no less than six peculiar species 
 of maple, all of great beauty. Cedars (Cupressus japonica), a 
 common tree throughout the country, grew here in great perfection. 
 The straightest and tallest of the firs, their trunks ran up straight as 
 a candle, and, being both light and very durable, the timber was 
 employed for all sorts of constructions, and also for cabinet work, 
 the veins showing to advantage when covered with varnish. The 
 wood of this tree, next to the Pinus silvestris, is that most employed 
 by carpenters, &c. He also observed several species of oaks,* the 
 common barberry, in full blossom, several species of the Vaccinia, 
 or whortleberry, a wild pear-tree, a shrub with leaves so rough 
 that they are used for polishing by the joiners, the Oryris japonica, 
 bearing its flowers at the middle of its leaves ; also, several beau- 
 tiful flowering shrubs, Viburna, with double as well as single flowers, 
 two species of Spirea, the Citrus tripoliata, and the Gardenia 
 Florida, of which the seed-vessels afforded a yellow dye. The 
 dragon lily {Arum, dracontium), and the edible species of the 
 same plant [Arum esculentum), the eddo, or tania, of the West 
 Indies, and taro of the Sandwich Islands (Caladium in more 
 recent classifications), were cultivated in some spots. 
 
 By night the sea-shore was again reached, at Odowara, whence 
 two days' journey took them to Jedo, where they arrived, on ac- 
 count of the delay in the sea voyage, at a period unusually late, 
 but which Thunberg notes as an advantage, since it gave him, both 
 going and returning, a better opportunity to observe the vegetation 
 
 * Kampfer says there are two species peculiar to Japan, the acorns of 
 which are boiled and eaten 
 
THUNBERG AT JEDO. 409 
 
 of the country. During the journey there had been rain sometimes, 
 but not too often, and the cold had been such as occasionally to 
 make fires very comfortable. The Japanese, he observed, bore the 
 cold better than the rain, which did not altogether agree with their 
 bare feet and heads. For the feet they used only slippers of rice 
 straw,* left at the door whenever they entered a house, consisting of 
 a sole, without upper leather or hind-piece (kept on by a thong, or 
 strap, held fast between the toes), and soon soaked and spoiled by the 
 rain, on which occasion, indeed, high wooden clogs were sometimes 
 substituted. Ordinarily, even while travelling, no covering for the 
 head was worn, but in hard rains they used an umbrella, a hat of 
 plaited grass, and a cloak of oil-paper, for which the poorer class 
 substituted a piece of straw matting, thrown over their backs. 
 
 The weather, during a stay of twenty-six days at Jedo, from 
 April 28th to May 25th, was often damp, almost every day cloudy, 
 with sometimes drizzling, and sometimes heavy, rain. Several 
 slight shocks of earthquake were felt. Several fires occurred, which 
 were soon extinguished. A great fire, during the Dutch visit of 
 1772, had burned from noon till eight at night, spreadiog over a vast 
 space, and making it necessary to remove the Dutch three times. 
 
 Down to the clay of audience, which did not take place till the 
 18th of May, the Dutch were not suffered to go out. Numbers of 
 persons obtained, however, permission to visit them. The first who 
 called were five physicians and two astronomers, prompted espe- 
 cially by Thunberg's scientific reputation, which the interpreters 
 had noised abroad, and who were very inquisitive on various points 
 of science. The questions of the astronomers related principally 
 to eclipses, which it appeared they could not calculate to minutes, 
 and frequently not even to hours ; but besides the difficulty of car- 
 rying on this conversation through interpreters, another arose, from 
 the fact that Thunberg's astronomy had grown a little rusty, and 
 that neither he nor the Japanese had any books to which they could 
 refer. 
 
 In matters of medicine, he felt more at home, especially as two 
 
 * Later accounts represent cloth or cotton stockings, or socks, as fre- 
 quently worn in cold weather, resembling mittens, in having a separate ac- 
 commodation for the great toe, so as to permit the introduction between that 
 and the others of the shoe-holding strap. 
 
 35 
 
£10 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 of the Japanese doctors could speak Dutch — one of them tolerably 
 well. They also had some knowledge of natural history, collected 
 partly from Chinese and Dutch books, and partly from the Dutch 
 physicians who had visited Jedo, but who frequently had not been 
 very well able to instruct them, as they were often, to use Thun- 
 berg's expression, " little better than horse-doctors." One of the 
 two Japanese, quite a young man, was the emperor's body -physi- 
 cian ; the other, somewhat older and better informed, was physician 
 to one of the chief princes. Both were good-natured, acute and lively. 
 They attached themselves to Thunberg with great zeal, coming to 
 see him every day, and often staying late at night. Though weari- 
 some with their questions, yet so insinuating were they in their man- 
 ners and anxious to learn, that our traveller found much pleasure 
 in their society. They had a number of Dutch works on botany, 
 medicine and surgery, and Thunberg sold them some others. They 
 were particularly struck with the fine set of surgical instruments 
 which he had brought from Amsterdam and Paris. These medical 
 friends were of great use to him in his studies in natural history. 
 Among the botanical specimens which they brought him were the 
 pine of Europe {Pinus abies), of which, as well as of the Pinus 
 silvestris, he had seen several on his journey to court, the chestnut, 
 which he saw afterwards at Miako, on his return, and the walnut 
 (Jugulans nigra). They also brought him a variety of ores and 
 minerals, and specimens of fishes and insects. 
 
 The Japanese, he found, knew nothing of anatomy or physiology. 
 They were ignorant of the circulation of the blood, feeling the 
 pulse for a quarter of an hour, first in one arm and then in the 
 other, not knowing that both beat alike. Bleeding they very sel- 
 dom practised ; of the use of mercury they knew nothing ; and, 
 notwithstanding what Thunberg relates of the cures effected under 
 his direction, by the use of corrosive sublimate, it may be doubted 
 now much benefit he conferred by the introduction of that remedy, 
 or by the present which he made to his " beloved pupils " of " his 
 Bilver-spring lancet," with instructions how to use it. 
 
 The two great remedies of the Japanese are acupuncture and 
 burning with the moxa, the former chiefly practised in a violent 
 colic endemic to the country. According to the Japanese theory, 
 t is caused by wind, and to let out this wind several sma. 1 holes 
 
THUNBERG AT JEDO. 411 
 
 — nine being a favorite number — are made with needles, prepared 
 for the purpose, generally in the muscles of the stomach or abdo- 
 men, though other fleshy parts of the body are, in some cases, 
 chosen for the operation. These needles are nearly as fine as a 
 hah', made of gold and silver generally, but sometimes of steel, by 
 persons who profess a particular skill' in tempering them. The 
 bony parts, nerves and blood-vessels, are carefully avoided, and 
 while they are passed through the skin and muscle, they are 
 twirled about in a peculiar manner. There are many practitioners 
 who confine themselves to this practice alone.* 
 
 A still more favorite and universal remedy, employed quite as 
 much for prevention as cure, is burning with the moxa — the finer 
 woolly part of the young leaves of the wormwood (Artemesia), of 
 which the coarser kind is used for ordinary tinder. It is procured 
 by rubbing and beating the leaves till the green part separates and 
 nothing remains but the wool, which is sorted into two kinds. When 
 applied, it is made up in little cones, which, being placed on the 
 part selected for the operation, are set fire to from the top. They 
 burn very slowly leaving a scar or blister on the skin, which, some 
 time after, breaks and discharges. The operation is not very pain- 
 ful, except when repeated in the same place, as it sometimes is, or 
 when applied to certain tender parts. It is thought very efficacious 
 in pleurisies, tooth-ache, gout and rheumatism — disorders which, 
 like the colic above-mentioned, are rapid in their operation, and of 
 which the paroxysms tend to a speedy termination under any medi- 
 cal treatment or none at all. The Japanese have very elaborate 
 treatises as to the effects produced by the moxa, according to the 
 part to which it is applied, and its application forms a science and 
 profession by itself. The fleshy parts, especially of the back, are 
 ordinarily selected. It is used still more by way of prevention than 
 for cure, every person, young and old, male and female, even pris 
 oners in the jails, submitting to the operation, at least once in si} 
 
 * There have not been wanting attempts to introduce acupuncture into 
 European practice. See a sensible article on this subject by Remusat (Nov. 
 Melanges Asiat., vol. i.), in which he gives an analysis of a Japanese treat- 
 ise on acupuncture, which, with a translation of it, was brought home by Tit- 
 singh. 
 
412 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 months.* Another remedy is friction, applied by certain profes- 
 sors, and which proves of great use in pains of the limbs, arising 
 from the prevailing vicissitudes of the weather. Internal remedies 
 are generally exhibited in the* form of simple decoctions, diuretic or 
 sudorific. Wonderful virtues are ascribed to certain drugs ; and, 
 on the whole, the Japanese appear, as in the use of unicorn's horn 
 and ginseng, to have been not less deluded by quack medicines and 
 medical theories than more enlightened nations.! 
 
 l"he doctors, like the priests, are distinguished from other people 
 by the fashion of wearing their hair. Thunberg states in one place 
 that they shaved the whole head ; in another, that they had 
 the option of retaining all their hair, like the boys and women. 
 According to Titsingh, physicians shave the head, and surgeons 
 wear the hair. Of surgery, however, they know next to nothing. 
 
 All the male Japanese who are neither priests nor physicians, 
 from the time the beard begins to grow, shave the head from the 
 forehead to the nape of the neck. The little hair left about the 
 neck and on the temples is well oiled, turned up in a cue, and tied 
 with several rounds, of white string made of paper. The hair above 
 the tie is cut off, leaving about the length of a finger, which, being 
 stiffened with a sort of pomatum, is so bent that the tip of it is 
 made to stand against the crown of the head. This arrangement is 
 strictly attended to, the head being shaved every day, that the 
 stumps of the growing hair may not disfigure it. 
 
 Women who have parted with their husbands also shave theii 
 heads — at least Thunberg met with one such instance ; but, in 
 general, the women retain all their hair, which they make smooth 
 with oil and mucilaginous substances, and either put close to the 
 head all round, or else (in the case of single women and serving- 
 
 * Kampfer treats at length on the acupuncture and moxa, and gives in. 
 his appendix a translation of a'Japanese treatise on the parts to be selected 
 to be burnt, according to the object to be accomplished. 
 
 t Of the Dosiu powder, to which the Japanese ascribe singular effects, 
 M. Titsingh has given a curious account. Illustrations, p. 283. It was the 
 invention of Kobou, a great saint and sage, who, by profound meditation 
 on the writings both of his own sect and others, had discovered that the great 
 scourges of mankind are four ; namely, Sigokf, hell ; Goki, woman ; Tiiku* 
 $io, the man with a perverse heart ; and Sioura, war. 
 
IMPERIAL AUDIENCE. 415 
 
 mai Is) make it stand in puffs on each side of the face. Th-g ends 
 are fastened together in a knob at the crown of the head, just before 
 which is stuck a large comb, made, in the case of the poorer people, 
 of lackered boxwood, and among the richer of tortoise-shell. The 
 rich wear also several long ornaments of tortoise-shell, stuck 
 through this knob, which, with a few flowers, constitute the whole of 
 their head decorations. " Vanity," says Thunberg, " has not yet 
 taken root among them to that degree as to induce them to wear 
 rings or other ornaments in their ears. No caps, hats or bonnets 
 are worn, except a conical cap, made of reeds, when travelling. 
 Otherwise the parasol, or fan, is all the shelter they use against the 
 sun or the rain." 
 
 The official visits are thus described by Thunberg : " We were 
 dressed in the European fashion, but in costly silks, interwoven 
 with silver and laced with gold. On account of the festivity of the 
 day it was requisite for us to wear our swords and a very large 
 black silk cloak. We were carried a considerable distance through 
 the town before we arrived at the emperor's residence. This is 
 surrounded by fosses and stone walls, and separated by draw- 
 bridges. It forms a considerable town of itself, and is said to be 
 five leagues in circumference, comprising the emperor's private 
 palace, as also that of the hereditary prince, each separated from 
 the other by wide fosses, stone walls, gates and other bulwarks. In 
 the outermost citadel, which was the largest of all, were large and 
 handsome covered streets and great houses, which belonged to the 
 princes of the country, the privy councillors, and other officers of 
 state. Their numerous families, who were obliged likewise to 
 remain at the court the whole year throughout, were also lodged 
 here. At the first gate there was a strong guard. That at the 
 second gate was said to consist of a thousand men.* As soon as 
 
 * From Thunberg's account of the arms of the Japanese, they cannot be 
 regarded as very formidable soldiers. He mentions bows and arrows, scym- 
 etars, halberts and guns. Their bowf are very large and their arrows long, 
 like those of the Chinese. The bowman, in order to shoot, places himself on 
 one knee, a position which renders it impossible to discharge his arrows with 
 any great rapidity. Guns were not ordinarily employed. Thunberg saw 
 them, apparently matchlocks, only as articles of show in the houses of the 
 imperial officers, displayed upon a stand in the audience chamber. The few 
 35* 
 
414 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 we had passed through this gate, having previously quitted our 
 norimons, we were conducted to an apartment, where we waited a 
 full hour. At last, having obtained leave to approach the imperial 
 palace, we passed t irough a long lane of soldiers, who were posted 
 on both sides quite up to the door of the palace, all armed and well 
 clothed. 
 
 " The emperor's private palace was situated on an eminence, and 
 although it consisted of one story only, still it was much higher 
 than any other house, and covered a large tract of ground. We 
 were immediately conducted into an antechamber, where we again 
 waited at least an hour. Our officers sat down in the Japanese 
 manner on one side, and the Dutchmen, together with the interpre- 
 ters, on the other. It proved extremely fatiguing to us to sit in 
 their manner ; and, as we could not hold it out long thus, we put our 
 legs out on one side and covered them with our long cloaks, which 
 in this respect were of great service to us. 
 
 " The time we waited here did not appear long, as great num- 
 bers of people passed in and out, both in order to look at us and 
 talk with us. We were visited by several princes of the country, 
 but constantly incognito, though we could always perceive when 
 they were coming, from the murmuring noise which was at first 
 heard from the inner rooms, and the silence that ensued upon it. 
 
 cannon at Nagasaki, -which once belonged to the Portuguese, were discharged 
 only once in seven years, the Japanese knowing little or not at all the proper 
 management of them, and fixing the match to a long pole, so as to touch 
 them off at a safe distance. Their longer swords are broad-backed, a little 
 curved, a yard long, and of excellent temper ; the hilts somewhat roundish 
 and flat, furnished with a round substantial guard without any bow. The 
 scabbard is thick and rather flat, made of wood, and sometimes covered with 
 shagreen and lackered. The shorter sword is straight. These swords are 
 costly and rated at a high value. 
 
 From a Japanese work,.Siebold states their method of making sword-blades : 
 *' The blades, forged out of good bar-steel, are plastered over with a paste of 
 potash, porcelain clay and powdered charcoal, and dried in the sun. They 
 are next exposed to the fire and heated till the mass assumes a white hue. 
 The glowing blades are then plunged into luke-warm water, three fifths boil- 
 ing to two fifths cold, and cooled gradually. Often the edge only is heated, 
 and then the cooling is with cold water. The reforging of old blades is not 
 uncommon." Of the two swords worn by the Japanese, one is long and 
 slightly cur v 3d, the other short and straight. 
 
VISITS TO THE HIGH OFFICERS. 415 
 
 Their curiosi :y was carried to a great length in everything ; but the 
 chief employment they found for us, was to let them see our mode 
 of writing. We were thus induced to write something either on 
 paper or on their fans. Some of them showed us fans on which the 
 Dutch had formerly written, and which they had carefully treasured 
 up as great rarities. 
 
 " At last the instant arrived when the ambassador was to have 
 audience, at which the ceremony was totally different from that 
 which was used in Kainpfer's time, we remaining in the apartment 
 into which we had been ushered. 
 
 " After the return of the ambassador we were again obliged to 
 stay a long while in the antechamber, in order to receive the visits 
 and answer the questions of several of the courtiers, several times 
 during whose entrance a deep silence prevailed. Among these, it 
 was said, his imperial majesty had likewise come incognito, in order 
 to have a nearer view of the Dutch and their dress* The inter- 
 preters and officers had spared no pains to find out, through the 
 medium of their friends, everything that could tend to our informa- 
 tion in this respect. The emperor was of a middle size, hale con- 
 stitution, and about -forty and odd years of age. 
 
 " At length, after all the visits were ended, we obtained leave to 
 see several rooms in the palace, and also that in which the ambassa- 
 dor had had audience, and which has already been described. 
 
 " The ambassador was conducted by the outside of the anteroom 
 and along a boarded passage to the audience room, which opened 
 by a sliding-door. The inner room consisted, in a manner, of 
 three rooms, one a step higher than the other, and, according to the 
 measure I took of them by my eye, when afterwards permitted to 
 view them, of about ten paces each in length, so that the distance 
 between the emperor and the ambassador might be about thirty 
 paces. The emperor, as I was informed, stood during the audience, 
 in the most interior part of the room, as did the hereditary prince 
 likewise, at his right hand. To the right of this room was a large 
 saloon, the floor of which was covered by a hundred mats, and 
 hence called the hundred-mat saloon. It is six hundred feet long 
 
 * This appears to have been the substitute for those private interviews, in 
 which the doctor and .secretary were expected to show off for the entertain 
 ment of the Dutch, and of which Kampfer has given so curious an account. 
 
416 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 and three hundred broad,* and is occupied by the most dignified 
 men of the empire, privy councillors and princes, who all, on similar 
 occasions, take their seats according to their different ranks and 
 dignity. To the left, in the audience room, lay the presents, sent 
 beforehand, and piled up in heaps. The whole of the audience con- 
 sists merely in this, that, as soon as the ambassador enters the 
 room, he falls on his hands, lays his hand on the mat, and bows his 
 head down to it, in the same manner as the Japanese themselves 
 are used to testify their subjection and respect. After this the 
 ambassador rises, and is conducted back to the anteroom the same 
 way that he came. 
 
 " The rest of the rooms which we viewed had no furniture in 
 them. The floors were covered with large and very white straw 
 mats ; the cornices and doors were handsomely lackered, and the 
 locks, hinges, &c, well gilt. 
 
 " After having thus looked about us, we were conducted to the 
 hereditary prince's palace, which stood close by, and was separated 
 only by a bridge. Here we were received and complimented in the 
 name of the hereditary prince, who was not at home ; after which 
 we were conducted back to our norimons. 
 
 " Although the day was already far advanced, and we had had 
 sufficient time to digest our early breakfast, we were nevertheless 
 obliged to pay visits to all the privy councillors, as well to the six 
 ordinary as to the six extraordinary, at each of their respective 
 houses. And as these gentlemen were not yet returned from court, 
 we were received in the most polite manner by their deputies, and 
 exhibited to the view of their ladies and children. Each visit lasted 
 half an hour ; and we were for the most part so placed in a large 
 room that we could be viewed on all sides through thin curtains, 
 without having the good fortune to get a sight of these court beau- 
 ties, excepting at one place, where they made so free as, not only 
 to take away the curtain, but also desired us to advance nearer. 
 In general we were received by two gentlemen in office, and at 
 every place treated with grsen tea, the apparatus for smoking, and 
 pastry, which was set beJ >re each of us, separately, on small 
 
 * It would take a thousand of the ordinary Japanese mats to cover such a 
 floor j but Thunberg says the mats upon it were of an extra size. 
 
VISITS TO THE HIGH OFFICERS. 417 
 
 tables. We drank sometimes a cup of the boiled tea, but did not 
 touch the tobacco, and the pastry was taken home through the pru- 
 dent care of our interpreters. 
 
 " I shall never forget the delightful prospect we had during these 
 visits, from an eminence that commanded a view of the whole of 
 this • large and extensive town, which the Japanese affirm to be 
 twenty-one leagues, or as many hours' walk, in circumference. 
 The evening drew nigh by the time that we returned, weary and 
 worn out, to our inn. 
 
 " On the following day (May 19th) we paid our respects to the 
 temple lords, as they are called, the two governors of the town, 
 and the two commissaries of strangers. A few days elapsed after 
 this before we received our audience of leave. This was given, in a 
 very summary manner, on the 23d following, and only before the 
 lords in council appointed for this purpose. The intervening days 
 were employed in receiving presents and preparing for our depart- 
 ure. At the audience of leave, the gowns or Japanese dresses, 
 intended as presents for the Dutch East India Company, were 
 delivered. The presents destined for us were carried to our inns. 
 Every ordinary privy councillor gives, the day after the audience 
 of leave, ten gowns ; every extraordinary privy councillor, six ; every 
 temple lord, five ; and every commissary, and the governor of Na- 
 gasaki, .two. Of these our banjos [the officers called by Kanrpfer 
 bugio and deputy-bugio — the conductors of the journey] received 
 two ; the secretary and ^myself two apiece ; and the ambassador 
 four. The rest are packed up for the company's account." * 
 
 Of these gowns, the universal, and almost only article of Japan- 
 ese dress, Thunberg, in another place, gives the following account. 
 " They are long and wide, and worn, one or more of them, by 
 people of every age and condition in life. The rich have them of 
 the finest silk, and the poor of cotton. The women wear them 
 reaching down to their feet, and the women of quality frequently 
 with a train. Those of the men come down to their heels; but 
 travellers, together with soldiers and laboring people, either tuck 
 them up or wear them so short that they only reach to their knees. 
 
 * This was a different arrangement from that which prevailed in Kamp 
 fer's time, when the ambassador had the whole, except those presented bj 
 the emperor himself. 
 
418 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 The men generally have them made of plain silk of one color ; but 
 the silken stuffs won by the women are flowered, sometimes in 
 gold. In the summer they are either without any lining at all, or 
 else with a thin lining only. In winter, by way of defence against 
 the cold weather, they are quilted with cotton or silk wad. The 
 men seldom wear many of them, but the women often from thirty to 
 fifty, or more, and all so thin, that together they hardly weigh 
 more than four or five pounds. The undermost serves for a shirt, 
 and is therefore either white or bluish, and, for the most part, thin 
 and transparent. All these gowns are fastened about the waist by 
 a belt, which for the men is about the breadth of a hand, and for 
 the women of twelve inches, and of such length as to go twice 
 round the body, with a large knot and rose. The knot worn by the 
 fair sex, which is larger than that worn by the men, shows imme- 
 diately whether the woman is married or not ; as the married 
 women wear the knot before, and the single behind. The men fasten 
 to this belt their sabres,* fan, tobacco-pipe and pouch. The gowns 
 are rounded off about the neck, without a cape, open before, and 
 show the bare bosom, which is never covered, either with a hand- 
 kerchief or anything else. The sleeves are ill-shaped, wide and 
 long, the openings partly sewed up, so as to form a bag, into which 
 they put their hands in cold weather, or use it as a pocket to hold 
 their papers and other things.! Young girls, in particular, have the 
 sleeves of their gowns so long as frequently to reach quite down to 
 the ground. On account of the width of their garments, they are 
 soon dressed and undressed, as they have nothing more to do than to 
 untie their girdle and draw in their arms, when the whole of their 
 dress instantly falls off of itself. The gowns serve also for bedclothes. 
 The common people, when at work, are frequently seen naked, 
 with only a girdle about them, or with their gowns taken off the 
 upper part of their bodies, and hanging down loose from their gir- 
 
 * The two swords, the badge of nobility, are worn stuck into the belt, on 
 the left side, with no belt of their own, a little crosswise and with the edge 
 apwards. When a person is seatei the longer sword is taken from the belt 
 and laid on the ground by him. 
 
 t The bosom of the gown is also used for the same purpose. For pocket- 
 handkerchiefs, the Japanese carry about them a supply of small, squar* 
 bits of soft paper, which they throw away as they use them. 
 
WORKS ON NATURAL HISTORY. 419 
 
 dies. Men of a highe rank wear over the long gowns a shorter 
 one, made of some thin stuff, such as gauze. As to the neck and 
 sleeves of it, they are like those of the other, but it reaches only to 
 the waist, and is not fastened with a girdle, but tied before and at 
 the top with a string. This half-gown is sometimes of a yellow, but 
 most frequently of a black color, and is laid aside at home, or in 
 any place where no superior is present." 
 
 As the Japanese ordinarily wear no covering for the legs, feet or 
 head, the above described gowns constitute their entire dress, except 
 upon occasions of ceremony, when a complimentary dress, or honor- 
 gown, kamisamo, as they call it, is added to it. This compliment- 
 ary dress consists of a frock, generally of a blue stuff, with white 
 flowers about half the length of the gown, and made much in the 
 same way, but carried on each side back over the shoulders, so as 
 to give a very broad-shouldered appearance to the wearer. To 
 this, with persons of a certain rank, is added, as part of the dress 
 of ceremony, a garment half breeches, half petticoat, as if it were a 
 petticoat sewed up between the legs, but left open at the sides for 
 two thirds their length, fastened about the waist by a band, and 
 reaching to the ankles. 
 
 Before leaving Jedo, Thunberg purchased a number of botanical 
 books, containing very indifferent figures of plants, as did another 
 botanical work, in twenty thin octavo volumes, presented to him by 
 one of his medical pupils. But a large printed* quarto, which he 
 purchased, contained figures of Japanese fishes, engraved and col- 
 ored in such superior style, as to be able to compete with similar 
 European works. He also procured, though the selling such things 
 to strangers was strictly prohibited, a map of Japan, with plans of 
 Jedo, Miako and Nagasaki, exactly like those brought away by 
 Kiimpfer, and engraved in his work. Just before his departure, at 
 the request of his two pupils in medicine, he gave them a certificate 
 in Dutch, of their proficiency, with which they were as highly de- 
 lighted as ever a young doctor was with his diploma. A warm 
 friendship had sprang up between him and them, and, even after 
 Thunberg's return to Europe, a correspondence was kept up and 
 
 * The Japanese print entirely from stereotype plates. They do not em 
 ploy movable types, and they print on one side of the paper only. 
 
420 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775—1776. 
 
 presents exchanged for some years, down at least to the publication 
 of his travels. 
 
 According to Thunberg, the personages composing the imperial 
 court were4n his time so little known that very few people in the 
 whole empire were acquainted with their names. M. Feith, the 
 director whom he accompanied to Jedo, and who had been on the 
 same embassy four times before, and had lived in Japan fourteen 
 years, was obliged to confess at table, after their return to Batavia, 
 being inquired of as to the name of the reigning emperor, that he 
 did not know it, and never had heard it. # It was only through the 
 friendship of his medical pupils at Jedo, and of the chief interpre- 
 ter, that he obtained a knowledge of it, and also a list of the empe- 
 rors since Kampfer's time, which he gives as follows : 
 
 Chin na yos (reigning when Kampfer left Japan, and for twelve 
 or thirteen years previously.) 
 
 1709, Ye Nob koo. 
 
 1713, Ye Tsu ku koo. 
 
 1717, Yosi Mune KOO. 
 
 1752, Ye Siege koo. 
 
 1762, Ye Fun koo,| who continued to reign at the time of 
 Thunberg's departure, being the forty-first in succession from Jori- 
 tomo, and ninth from Jesi Jas, otherwise Daisu-Sama and Ogoshu- 
 Sama, or, as he was called after his death, Gongin-Sama, by whom 
 the reigning dynasty had been established. 
 
 Thunb.erg left Jedo on his return the 25th of May. The weather 
 being rainy they were a good deal molested by gnats, against which 
 they had to protect themselves by gauze curtains. The Japanese 
 
 * The emperors are seldom or never spoken of, in the Jesuit letters and other 
 contemporary memorials, by their personal or family names, but only by 
 some title, as Kubo-Sama ; Kambucundono, or, as Klaproth would write it, 
 Kwanbaku-dono — theKwanbak (or bonnet- keeper) being a high dignitary 
 in the court of the Dairi, regent in case of a minority or a female Dairi ; — 
 Taiko-Sama, mighty lord ; Xogun-Sama, which is only, as has been already 
 noted, Siogun-Sama, &c. &c. 
 
 t The above names are written by Titsingh, as corrected by Klaproth, 
 thus : Tsuna yosi, Ye-Nobu, Yei tsubo, Yosi-Mune, Ye-Sige (whose ac- 
 cession he places in 1745), Ye-Faru (succeeds in 1760). He gives as suc- 
 cessor in 1786, Yeye-Nari. Koo (which Titsingh writes kio) he represents 
 as a title merely. 
 
FARMING. 421 
 
 fire-flies, so much more brilliant and active than the European 
 glow-worm, were noticed with admiration. 
 
 At this season the first gathering was made of the tea-leaves, yet 
 quite young and yielding the finer kinds of tea. He observed in some 
 places the leaves carelessly spread before the houses on mate to dry. 
 He also observed the farmers, in several places, threshing barley, 
 wheat and mustard seed, on similar mats, with flails having three 
 swingels, or sometimes by beating the ears against a tub. To sepa- 
 rate the exterior husk from the rice, it was pounded by hand in a 
 Kind of mortar, or by means of a machine consisting of a number 
 of pestles set in motion by a water-wheel, or by a man's foot. After 
 the wheat and barley were gathered, French beans (Phaseoli) were 
 sown for a second crop. He observed many kinds of peas and 
 beans cultivated, especially the Dolichos soia, not only used for 
 making soy, but the chief ingredients of a soup, a daily dish with 
 most classes. The Dolichos polystachos, which ran winding like 
 scarlet beans, was employed for arbors. Its flowers, hanging down 
 from long stalks, were very ornamental, and appeared in succession 
 for a long period. He mentions, also, lettuce, melons both with 
 red and white pulp, pumpkins, cucumbers, eaten both raw and 
 pickled, gourds, employed for flasks, mushrooms, very much used, 
 especially for soups and sauces, Seville and China oranges, lemons, 
 shaddocks, medlars (Mespillus japonica), a large sort of persimmon 
 {Dyosperos kaki), grapes, pomegranates, Spanish figs (Cactus Jicus), 
 chestnuts and walnuts* The condition of the Japanese farmer Thun- 
 berg contrasts very favorably with that of the Swedish agricultural- 
 ist, overloaded as the latter was with feudal burdens, though doubt 
 less he knew better these burdens, which he indignantly enumer 
 ates, than he did the grievances of the Japanese cultivator. 
 
 At Osaka he saw the smelting of copper from the ores obtained 
 in that neighborhood, and the method of casting it into bars. A 
 mould was made for this purpose, by digging a hole in the ground 
 a foot deep, across which were laid ten square iron bars, barely a 
 finger's breadth apart. A strip of sail-cloth was spread over these 
 bars and forced down. The hole was then filled with water, and 
 
 * Kiimpfer represents the Japanese strawberry as entirely insipid, and the 
 raspberries and brambleberries as not agreeable ; and Golownin, from his 
 own experience, agrees with him in this statement. 
 
422 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775— 177i. 
 
 the melted metal, smelted from the ore, was dipped up in iron ladles 
 and poured into this mould, thus forming each time ten or eleven 
 thin plates. To this method of casting he ascribes its high colo*. 
 
 Thunberg had an opportunity of seeing Japanese plays, both at 
 Osaka, on his return from Miako, and at Nagasaki, during the an- 
 nual Matsuri in honor of Siwa, which he attended. " The specta- 
 tors," ne says, " sit in houses of different dimensions, on benches. 
 Facing them, upon an elevated but small and narrow place, stands 
 the theatre itself, upon which seldom more than one or two actors 
 perform at a time. These are always dressed in a very singular man- 
 ner, according as their own taste and fancy suggest, insomuch that 
 a stranger would be apt to believe that they exhibited themselves 
 not to entertain, but to frighten, the audience. Their gestures as 
 well as their dress are strangely uncouth and extravagant, and 
 consist in artificial contortions of the body, which it must have cost 
 them much trouble to learn and perform. In general they repre- 
 sent some heroic exploit, or love story, of their idols and heroes, 
 which are frequently composed in verse, and are sometimes accom- 
 panied with music. A curtain may, it is true, be let fall between 
 the actors and the spectators, and some necessary pieces be brought 
 forward upon the theatre ; but in other respects these small theatres 
 have no, machinery nor decorations which can entitle them to be put 
 in comparison with those of Europe. 
 
 " When the Japanese wish at any time to entertain the Dutch, 
 either in the town of Nagasaki, or more particularly during their 
 journey to the imperial court, they generally provide a band of 
 female dancers, for the amusement of their guests. These are gen- 
 erally young damsels, very superbly dressed, whom they fetch from 
 the inns ; sometimes young boys likewise are mixed among them. 
 Such a dance requires always a number of persons, who turn and 
 twine, and put themselves into a variety of artificial postures, in 
 order to represent an amorous qi* heroic deed, without either speak- 
 ing or singing. Their steps are, however, regulated by the music 
 which plays to them. These girls are provided with a number of 
 very fine and light gowns, made of silk, which they slip off one 
 after another, during the dance, from the upper part of their body, 
 so as frequently to leave them, to the number of a dozen together, 
 ' suspended from the girdle which encircles their loins." 
 
thunberg's character oe the people. 423 
 
 Though the view taken by Thunberg of the Japanese presents 
 them perhaps not quite so high in the scale of civilization as Kamp- 
 fer's, yet he is scarcely less their admirer, coinciding, indeed, in this 
 respect, with most of the Europeans who have left any memorials 
 of their observations in .Japan. He notes- especially their courtesy, 
 friendly disposition, ingenuity, love of knowledge, justice, honesty, 
 frugality, cleanliness and self-respect ; and he emphatically repu- 
 diates the conclusion that, because the laws are severe and strictly 
 executed, the people are therefore to be regarded as slaves. These 
 laws are for the public good, and their severity ensures their observ- 
 ance. "The Japanese," he tells us, "hate and detest the inhuman 
 traffic in slaves, carried on by the Dutch, and the cruelty with which 
 these poor creatures are treated." 
 
 In common with Kampfer. he admires and extols the immutability 
 of the Japanese laws and customs ; but this seems hardly so legiti- 
 mate a subject of eulogy as the peace in which the empire is kept, 
 the plenty which is said to prevail,* and its freedom as well from 
 internal feuds, political or religious, as from foreign encroachments. 
 
 Thunberg's Flora Japonica describes about a thousand species, 
 of which upwards of three hundred were new. In the preface 
 to it, he speaks of the Japanese Islands as chiefly hills and 
 valleys, with high mountains. Plains and meadows are rare. The 
 soil is now clayey and now sandy. The summer heat is great, espe- 
 cially in July and August, sometimes one hundred degrees of Fahren- 
 heit, and scarcely tolerable but for the breeze. In winter the ther- 
 mometer, even in the most southern parts, falls many degrees below 
 the freezing-point, especially with the wind from the north and west, 
 with ice and snow, which on the highest mountains remains all the 
 year round. The changes in the weather are great and sudden ; 
 violent storms with thunder and lightning are common. The raim 
 are abundant throughout the year, and especially so in spring and 
 summer, whence in part the fertility of Japan, mainly due, however, 
 to careful cultivation. 
 
 * This plenty is in strong contrast with the famine, scarcity and distress, 
 frequently noted by the Jesuit missionaries, as prevailing during the civil 
 wars of their time ; yet, even at present, occasional seasons of scarcity seen? 
 to occur. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 ISAAC TITSINGH. HIS RESIDENCE IN JAPAN. — TRANSLATIONS FROM TUB 
 
 JAPANESE. ANNALS OF THE DAIRI. MEMOIRS OF THE SIOGUN. LIBERAL 
 
 IDEAS IN JAPAN. MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. FUNERAL CEREMONIES. - - 
 
 MOURNING. FEAST OF LANTERNS. A. D. 1779—1791. 
 
 Soon after Thunberg's departure, he had a worthy successor, in 
 the person of Mr. Isaac Titsingh, the first director at Desima since 
 the time of Caron to whom we are indebted for any information 
 about Japan. Born about 1640, Titsingh had entered early into 
 the service of the Dutch East India Company. After seven years' 
 residence at Batavia, he was sent to Desima, as director, where he 
 arrived August 15th, 1779, and remained till November 29th, 1780, 
 when he returned to Batavia. He came back again to Japan 
 August 12th, 1781, and remained till November 6th, 1783, the 
 war between Holland and England, growing out of the American 
 revolution, having prevented the arrival of any ships from Ba- 
 tavia during the year 1782 — an event of which Titsingh took 
 advantage to stipulate for a considerable advance in the price of 
 Dutch imports, for a term of fifteen years. He reached Nagasaki 
 a third time, August 18th, 1784, but left again November 26th of 
 the same year. During his first and second visits he made the 
 journey to Jedo as Dutch ambassador, where he succeeded in mak- 
 ing several friends, particularly Kutsuka Samon, prince of Tamba, 
 who had learned Dutch, which he wrote tolerably well, with whom, 
 and other Japanese friends, Titsingh kept up a correspondence for 
 some time after leaving the country. 
 
 During his residence in Japan he made a valuable collection of 
 Japanese curiosities, including many Japanese books, and he also 
 brought home with him translations of some of these books, made 
 by aid of Japanese interpreters attached to the factory at Desima ; 
 whose interpretations, given viva voce, he wrote out in Dutch ; fox 
 
ISAAC TITSINGH. 42b 
 
 though Titsingh knew enough of Japanese for the purposes of con- 
 versation, he does not seem to have acquired the written language, 
 nor to have been able to read Chinese, of which the characters are 
 largely, and, indeed, chiefly, employed in most Japanese works of 
 much pretensions. " I found," he says, " among the interpreters 
 belonging to our factory, four individuals sufficiently well-informed 
 for my purpose ; a fifth had devoted himself chiefly to medicine, in 
 which he had made rapid progress, in consequence of the instruc- 
 tion given to him by Dr. Thunberg. Far from finding them suspi- 
 cious and reluctant, as Europeans are usually pleased to represent 
 these persons, in order to palliate their own indolence, they mani- 
 fested, on the contrary, an eagerness to procure for me every prac- 
 ticable information, to consult, in various matters beyond their 
 capacity, the best informed individuals among the magistrates and 
 clergy, and to furnish me with books which might serve as a guide 
 to my labors." 
 
 After leaving Japan, Titsingh was governor at the Dutch factory 
 at Chinsurah, in Bengal, where he became acquainted with Sir 
 William Jones. In 1794 he was sent, with Van Braam, on a Dutch 
 embassy to Pe"kin, with the design to counterwork the English em- 
 bassy of Lord Macartney ; but this residence in China was limited 
 to a few months. 
 
 Returning to Europe, after a residence in the East of thirty- 
 three years, Titsingh designed to publish the result of his Japanese 
 researches, in both Dutch and French ; but, before having done it, 
 he died at Paris, in 1812, leaving his large fortune and his collec- 
 tions and manuscripts to an only child of his, by an Eastern woman, 
 by whom the fortune was soon spent, and the manuscripts and curi- 
 osities sold and scattered, though some of them ultimately fell into 
 appreciating hands.* 
 
 * See a notice of Titsingh's collection, by Remusat, in Nouveau Melanges 
 Asiutique, vol. I. It included, besides the works since published, a manu- 
 script history of Japan, in eighty volumes (Japanese volumes are quite 
 thin), also, a Chinese Japanese encyclopaedia, several copies of a large map of 
 Japan, colored drawings of plants, several botanical treatises, with wood cuts, 
 very well done, &c, &c. The encyclopaedia was presented to the Biblotheque 
 au Boy, and Remusat has given a full analysis of it in Notices et Extracts 
 ties Manuscripts, vol. xi." 
 36* 
 
426 JAPAN. — A. D. 1779—1791. 
 
 Among his translations, the one to which -Titsingh ascribed the 
 greatest importance was that of the Nipon o da'l itsi Ran, an abridged 
 Japanese chronicle, from a. c. 600 to a. j>. 1611, compiled in the 
 year 1652, and printed at Miako. Having been carefully compared 
 by Klaproth with the original — a task, as he says, from the mani- 
 fold defects of Titsingh's version, almost equivalent to a new trans- 
 lation — and having been enriched with an introduction, a supple- 
 ment and notes, this work was published in 1834, in French, at 
 the expense of the Oriental Translation Fund, under the title of 
 " Annates des Empereurs du Japan." 
 
 Though highly valuable as a specimen of what Japanese histories 
 are, and though Klaproth's introduction and notes contain some 
 curious information, this performance is, on the whole, exceedingly 
 dry, while it adds but little to the abstract given by Kampfer of 
 this or some other similar work. A criticism which Titsingh him- 
 self makes upon it, in a letter to the prince of Tamba, to whom he 
 had intended to dedicate his translation, is worthy of notice, as 
 going to show how little, with all its formal precision of years and 
 months, the earlier Japanese chronology is entitled to historical 
 respect. " Must we not suppose," asks Titsingh, " ttfat the Japan- 
 ese, so jealous of their neighbors, the Chinese, have, in writing 
 their own history, endeavored to fill up many gaps in it by prolong- 
 ing the reigns of their earlier Dairi ? There is in your history a 
 period of one thousand and sixty-one years occupied by the reigns 
 of only sixteen Dairi. The duration of the life of Syn-mu, of the 
 reigns of Ko-an, of Sei-sum, and the life of O-sin, appear altogether 
 improbable. The first died at the age of one hundred and twenty- 
 seven years. The second reigned one hundred and two years, the 
 third ninety-nine years. The last lived one hundred and ten years. 
 These statements are too extraordinary to be blindly believed 
 Grant, even, that a chaste and frugal way of living may have 
 secured for these princes a very advanced age, but how does it 
 happen that, after Nin-tok-te?i-o [the seventeenth Dairi], none ex- 
 ceeded the ordinary limit of human life ? " 
 
 The Japanese still cling with tenacity to the formal recognition 
 of the absolute rights of the Dairi. With as much warmth as a 
 loyal Englishman would exhibit in maintaining the actual sover- 
 eignty of Queen Victoria, they insisted to Titsingh — and the sam# 
 
KELATIONS OF THE DAIRI AND SIOGUN. 427 
 
 thing afterwards occurred to Golownin — that Europeans were mis* 
 taken in applying the term " emperor " to the Siogun, the Dairi 
 being the only legal emperor, and the Siogun but an officer to whom 
 the Dairi had entrusted the administration.* 
 
 The annual visit of the Siogun to the Dairi, made in Caron's 
 time, had been discontinued; but mutual embassies are still ex- 
 changed, and the envoys sent from the Dairi are received by the 
 Siogun as if they were the Dairi himself. The Siogun goes to 
 meet them, and conducts them to the hall of audience, where he 
 performs the kitu, bending before them till his head touches the 
 mats, as if they were the very Dairi. This homage finished, the 
 Siogun resumes his rank, and the ambassadors then perform the 
 kotu to him. During their stay they are entertained by two per- 
 sons, who, from the allowance made for it, find this office very 
 lucrative. The ambassadors also receive rich presents, not only at 
 Jedo, but all along the route, and the attendance upon this service, 
 even in an inferior capacity, is so lucrative as to be eagerly coveted 
 by the poor courtiers of the Dairi. Titsingh encountered one of 
 these embassies on his return from Jedo in 1782, and was obliged 
 to stop a whole day, and to lodge in a citizen's house, all the horses, 
 porter's and inns, being taken up by the embassy. However poor 
 and powerless, the courtiers of the Dairi still enjoy all the outward 
 observances of superior rank. The first princes of the empire must 
 pay them the homage of the kitu, and must lay aside their two 
 swords in their presence. For this reason, these princes, in going 
 <md returning to Jedo, carefully avoid passing through Miako. 
 
 A more interesting publication, from the manuscript of Titsingh, 
 and one which appeared earlier, is Memoirs of the Djogouns, which 
 had itself been preceded by a number of other pieces, translations 
 
 * Theoretically the Siogun is but an inferior officer at the court of the 
 Dairi. The first rank belongs to the Kwanbak, who represents the Dairi 
 when that dignity devolves on a woman or a child. The Siogun, it is said, 
 cannot hold this office. It was assumed, however, by Taiko-sama, and even 
 conferred by him on his presumptive heir. Ordinarily the Tai zio dai sin, 
 or president of the council, is the first officer ; then follow the Sa dai sin and 
 Ou dai si??,* officers of the left aud of the right hand. These constitute the 
 Dairi's council, and theoretically the Siogun can do nothing without tluir 
 consent. It is esteemed a great honor to the Siogun to receive even the third 
 of these titles. 
 
428 JAPAN. — A. D. 1779—1791. 
 
 and originals.* ' These memoirs profess to be compiled from Japan- 
 ese manuscripts, of which Titsingh gives the following account 
 " Since the accession of Gongin, founder of the present dynasty, 
 the printing of any work relating to the government has been 
 prohibited. The curious, however, possess manuscript accounts 
 of all the remarkable events that have occurred. These manu- 
 scripts are in great request. The conduct of persons of elevated 
 rank is sometimes as freely censured in them as it would be in any 
 country in Europe. The obstructions which the government throws 
 in the way of the publication of historical works prevent these 
 works from being known, and thus obviate whatever might make 
 an obnoxious impression on the minds of the people, and endanger 
 the interests of the reigning dynasty, as well as the tranquillity of 
 the empire. From some of these manuscripts are extracted the 
 particulars here submitted to the public. The Japanese, to whom 
 they belong, keep them carefully concealed, so that it is difficult to 
 procure a sight of them. If I was fortunate enough to obtain the 
 communication of those from which I have extracted such curious 
 notes, I am indebted for it to the ardent zeal with which my friends 
 assisted me in all my researches." M. Abel Remusat, the learned 
 Orientalist, who, at the request of the French publisher, prefixed 
 some preliminary observations to this publication, observes that, 
 " Thanks to the pains M. Titsingh has taken, we shall outstrip the 
 Japanese themselves, and, by an extraordinary singularity, we shall 
 be earlier and better informed than they concerning the events of 
 their own history." This publication in Europe of Japanese his- 
 tory is not, however, so much a singularity as M. Remusat seems to 
 suppose. The letters of the Jesuit missionaries furnished contem- 
 porary details of Japanese history extending over a period of more 
 than seventy years, and including the establishment of the present 
 system of government, far more full and authentic, we may well 
 believe, than anything which the Japanese themselves possess, and 
 far exceeding anything contained in this book of Titsingh's, whom 
 M. Remusat, perhaps in rather too complimentary a spirit, places 
 
 * There is no such consonant as Dj in Japanese, and the proper reading is 
 not Djogoun, but Siogun. An English translation, including both th« 
 Memoirs of the Djogouns and the other pieces, was published at London, i« 
 1822, with the title of Illustrations of Japan. 
 
CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS. 42^> 
 
 on a level with Kanipfer, and in advance of Thunberg, as a contrib- 
 utor to our knowledge of Japan. 
 
 .The memoirs of the Djogouns, made up of detached fragments, in 
 general very jejune, contain,- however, a few* anecdotes, which 
 jserve to illustrate the ideas and manners of the Japanese. The 
 Kubo-Sama reigning in Kampfer's time is 'stated to have been 
 stabbed, in 1709, by his wife, a daughter of the Dairi, because, 
 being childless, he persisted in selecting as his successor a person 
 very disagreeable to all the princes — an act which causes her 
 •memory to be held in high honor. 
 
 One of the longest of these fragments relates to an alleged con- 
 spiracy, in the year 1767, against the reigning Siogun, for which a 
 number of persons suffered death. There is, also, an account of an 
 extensive volcanic eruption, which took place in September, 1783, 
 m the interior of the island of Nipon, in the province of Sinano, 
 north-west of Jedo, and north of Osaka. The mountain Asama vom- 
 ited sand, ashes, and pumice-stones ; the rivers flowing from it were 
 heated "boiling-hot, and their dammed-up waters inundated the 
 country. Twenty-seven villages were swallowed up, and many peo- 
 ple perished. 
 
 The councillor of state, Tonoma-yamossin, was assassinated the 
 next year (1784), in the emperor's palace ; but of this event, and of 
 others connected with it, Titsingh gives a fuller explanation in his 
 Introduction to the Japanese Marriage Ceremonies. He there in- 
 forms us that " though many Japanese of the highest distinction, 
 and intimately acquainted with matters of government, still con- 
 sider Japan as the first empire of the world, and care but little 
 for what passes out of it, yet such persons are denominated by the 
 more enlightened Inoetzi-no-Kajoru — that is, ' Frogs in a well ' — 
 a metaphorical expression, which signifies that when 'they look up 
 they can see no more of the sky than what the small circumference 
 of the well allows them to perceive." Of this more enlightened 
 party was the extraordinary councillor, Matsdaira Tsu, who pro- 
 posed,, in 1769, the building of ships and junks suitable for foieign 
 voyages ; but this plan was put a stop to by his death. 
 
 Tango-no-kami, the governor of Nagasaki, one of this more 
 liberal party, with whom Titsingh, while director, kept up a secret 
 intercourse, proposed to him, in 1783, to bring carpenters from Ba 
 
430 JAPAN. — A. D. 1779—1791. 
 
 tavia, to instruct the Japanese in building vessels, especially for the 
 transport of copper from Osaka to Nagasaki, in which service many 
 Japanese vessels had been lost, with their cargoes; but this Titsingh 
 knew to be impossible, as skilful carpenters were too rare at Bata- 
 via to be spared. He therefore proposed to take with him, on his 
 return to Batavia, a number of Japanese to be instructed there ; 
 but the prohibition against any native leaving the country proved 
 an insurmountable obstacle. He then promised to have a model 
 ship built at Batavia, and conveyed to Nagasaki, which was done 
 by himself, on his last visit to Japan ; but the assassination of « 
 Tonoma, above mentioned, which had happened during his absence 
 at Batavia, put an end to all hopes that had been formed of a mod- 
 ification in the exclusive policy of the Japanese. 
 
 This Tonoma (son of Tonomo, ordinary councillor, and uncle of 
 the Siogun) was, according to Titsingh's account, a young man of 
 uncommon merit and liberal ideas, and the anti-frog-in-a-well 
 party flattered themselves that when he should succeed his father, 
 he would, as they expressed it, "widen the road." After *his ap- 
 pointment as extraordinary councillor, he and his father incurred, 
 as Titsingh states, the hatred of the grandees of the court, by intro- 
 ducing various innovations, which the " Frogs in a well " censured 
 as detrimental to the empire. It was to this feeling that his assas- 
 sination was ascribed, a crime which put an end to the hopes which 
 had begun to be entertained, of seeing Japan opened to foreigners, 
 and of its inhabitants being allowed to visit other countries. 
 
 The appetite for foreign knowledge which Thunberg had noticed, 
 was also observed by Titsingh. " During my residence in Japan," 
 so he writes in the above quoted Introduction, " several persons of 
 quality, at Jedo, Miako, and Osaka, applied themselves assiduously 
 to the acquisition of the Dutch language, and the reading of our 
 books. The prince of Satsuma, father-in-law of the present Djo- 
 goun, used our alphabet to express in his letters what he wished a 
 third person not to understand. The surprising progress made by 
 the prince of Tamba, by Katsagawa Hozun, physician to the Djo- 
 goun, and Nakawa Simnau, physician to the prince of Wakassa* 
 
 * These two were the very pupils of Thunberg, though he writes theii 
 names somewhat differently. 
 
POWER OP THE PRINCES. 431 
 
 and several others, enabled tliem to express themselves more clearly 
 than many Portuguese, born and bred among us at Batavia. Con- 
 sidering the short period of our residence [he means, apparently, 
 the stay of the Dutch embassy] at Jedo, such .proficiency cannot 
 but excite astonishment and admiration. The privilege of corre- 
 sponding with the Japanese, above mentioned, and of sending them 
 back their answers corrected, without the letters being opened by 
 the government, allowed through the special favor of the worthy 
 governor, Tango-no-Kami, facilitated to them the learning of 
 Dutch." 
 
 In 1786, the reigning Siogun, Ye-Fasou, died, and was succeeded 
 by an adopted son, Yeye-Xari, who was his distant cousin, being a 
 great-grandson of his great-grandfather. This prince was married 
 to a daughter of the prince of Satsuma, and that is stated to have 
 been a principal reason for his adoption, it being the policy of the 
 Sioguns thus to secure the attachment of the most powerful princes. 
 The reigning family is thus allied to the princes of Kaga, Satsuma, 
 Yetsisen, Xaugato, and Oxu, while the houses of Yoari, Kiusiu, 
 and 3Iino, are descended from the sons of G-ongin, from among 
 whom, in case of failure of heirs, the Siogun is selected. These 
 princes of the first class, notwithstanding the jealous supremacy of 
 the emperors, still retain certain privileges. According to Titsingh, 
 they enjoy absolute, power in their own palaces, with the right of 
 life and death over their dependents ; nor, in case they commit 
 crimes, has the emperor any authority to put them to death. He 
 can only, with the Dairi's assistance, compel them to resign in favor 
 of their sons. 
 
 In 1788, a terrible fire occurred at Miako, by which almost the 
 entire city, including the palace of the Dairi, was destroyed. The 
 particulars of this event were communicated to Titsingh by his 
 Japanese correspondents. 
 
 Early in 1793,' the summit of the Oun zen ga dak (High moun- 
 tain of warm springs), in the province of Fisen, west of Simabara, 
 sank' entirely down. Torrents of boiling water issued from all 
 parts of the deep cavity thus formed, and a vapor arose like thick 
 smoke. Three weeks after, there was an eruption from a crater, 
 about half a league from the summit. The lava soon reached the 
 loot of the mountain, and in a few days the country was in flames 
 
 
432 JAPAN. A. D. 1779—1791. 
 
 for miles around. A month after, the whole island of Kiusiu was 
 shaken by an earthquake, felt principally, however, in the neigh- 
 borhood of Simabara. It reduced that part of the province of 
 Figo opposite Simabara to a deplorable condition, and even altered 
 the whole outline of the coast, sinking many vessels which lay in 
 the harbors. This is the event of the latest date mentioned by 
 Titsingh. A plan of the eruption, furnished by one of his Jap- 
 anese correspondents, also one of the eruption in Sinano, in 1783, 
 is given in the " Illustrations of Japan." 
 
 The matter upon which Titsingh throws the most light is the 
 marriage and funeral ceremonies of the Japanese, as to which he 
 gives a translation, or, rather, an abridgment, of two Chinese works, 
 received as authority in Japan, as to the etiquette to be observed 
 on these occasions, at the same time noting the variations intro- 
 duced by the Japanese. 
 
 The system o'f Japanese manners, being based on that of the 
 Chinese, abounds in punctilios, and the higher the rank of the par- 
 ties concerned, the more these punctilios are multiplied. This 
 applies to marriages, as to other things. The treatise which Tit- 
 singh follows relates only to the marriages of what we should 
 call the middle class (including merchants, artisans ; &c), who, 
 though often possessed of considerable wealth, hold in Japan much 
 the same subordinate position held prior to the French revolution 
 by the corresponding class in France. 
 
 With persons of high rank, marriages are made entirely from 
 family convenience ; even with those of the middle' class they are 
 also much based on prudential considerations. Formerly, the 
 bridegroom never saw the bride till she entered his house, which 
 she does, preceded by a woman bearing a lantern, which originally 
 served the bridegroom to catch his first glimpse of the bride, and, 
 if he did not like her looks, the match might be broken off, and the 
 bride sent home. " Such cases," says Titsingh, " formerly occurred ; 
 but at present, beauty is held in much less estimation than for- 
 tune and high birth — advantage's to which people would once 
 have been ashamed to attach so much value, and the custom has 
 been by degrees entirely laid aside, on account of the mortification 
 which it must give to the bride. At present, when a young man 
 has any intention of marrying a female, whom he deems likely, 
 
MARRIAGE' CEREMONIES. 433 
 
 from the situation of her parents, to be a suitable match, he first 
 seeks to obtain a sight of her. If he likes her person, a mediator, 
 selected from among his married friends, is sent to negotiate a 
 match. People of quality have neither lantern nor mediator, 
 because the parents affiance the children in infancy, and marriage 
 always follows. Should it so happen that the husband dislikes the 
 wife, he takes as many concubines as he pleases. This is also the 
 case among persons of the inferior classes. The children are 
 adopted by the wife, who is respected in proportion to the number 
 of which she is either the actual or nominal mother." 
 
 Formerly the bride was not allowed, in case of the bridegroom's 
 death before the consummation of the nuptials, to marry again. A 
 moving story is told of a romantic Japanese young lady, who, being 
 urged by her friends to a second betrothal, to avoid such a sacrifice 
 of her delicacy, cut off" her hair, and, when that would not answer, 
 her nose also. But this antique constancy has, in these latter 
 depraved times — depraved -in Japan as well as elsewhere — en- 
 tirely disappeared, as well among the nobility as the common 
 people. 
 
 The match having been agreed upon, the bridegroom's father 
 sends a present — nothing is done in Japan without presents 
 — to the bride's father. The bearer, accompanied by the mediator, 
 delivers not only the presents and a written list or invoice of them, 
 but a complimentary message also. For these presents a written 
 veceipt is given, and, three days after, the bearer and those who 
 attended him are complimented by a counter present. 
 
 The following articles are then got ready at the bride's house by 
 the way of outfit: A white wedding-dress, embroidered with 
 gold or silver ; four other dresses, one with a red, a second with 
 a black ground, one plain white, a fourth plain yellow; a num- 
 ber of gowns, both lined and single, and all the other requisites 
 of a wardrobe, as girdles, bathing-gowns, under robes, both fine and 
 coarse, a thick furred robe for a bed-gown ; a mattress to sleep 
 on; bed-clothes; pillows; gloves; carpets; bed-curtains; a silk cap; 
 a furred cotton cap ; long and short towels ; a cloak ; a covering for 
 a norimon ; a bag with a mixture of bran, wheat and dried herbs, to 
 be used in washing the face ; also, a bag of toothpicks, some skeins 
 of thin twine, made of twisted paper, for tying up the hair; a small 
 37 
 
 
434 JAPAN. — A. D. 1779—1791. 
 
 hand-mirror ; a little box of medicines ; a small packet of the best 
 columbac, for painting the lips ; several kinds of paper for doing 
 up packages; also paper for writing letters; a hollo (a kind of 
 harp) ; a samsi (a sort of guitar) ; a small chest for holding paper ; 
 an inkhorn ; a pin-cushion ; several sorts of needles ; a box of 
 combs ; a mirror with its stand ; a mixture for blacking the teeth 
 (the distinguishing mark of married women in Japan, some black- 
 ening them the moment they are married, and others when they 
 become pregnant) ; curling-tongs for the hair ; scissors ; a letter- 
 case ; a case of razors ; several small boxes, varnished or made of 
 osier ; dusters ; a case of articles for dressing the hair ; an iron 
 for smoothing linen ; a large osier basket to • hold the linen ; 
 n tub with handles ; a small dagger, with a white sheath, 
 in a little bag (thought to drive away evil spirits and to pre- 
 serve from infectious exhalations — a quality ascribed also to the 
 swords worn by the men) ; complimentary cards, made of paper, 
 variously colored, and gilt or silvered at the ends, to tie 
 round presents ; nosi, a species of edible sea-weed, of which 
 small pieces are attached to every congratulatory present ; silk 
 thread ; a small tub to hold flax ; several slender bamboos, used in 
 hanging out clothes to dry ; circular fans ; common fans ; fire-tu- 
 reens ; and — what certainly ought to form a part of the bridal out- 
 fit of our city belles — a small bench for supporting the elbows 
 when the owner has nothing to do ! Several books are also added, 
 poems and stories, moral precepts, a book on the duties of woman 
 in the married state, and another — the very one we are now giv- 
 ing an abstract of — on the etiquette of the marriage ceremony. 
 Two. different kinds of dressing-tables are also provided, containing 
 many of the above-mentioned articles ; also a number of other house- 
 keeping utensils. 
 
 When these things are ready, the mediator and his wife are 
 invited to the house of the bride's father, and entertained there. A 
 lucky day is selected for sending the above-mentioned articles, ac- 
 companied by a written list, to the bridegroom's house. The 
 mediator is present to assist in receiving them, and a formal receipt 
 is given, as well as refreshments and presents to the bearers in pro- 
 portion to the value of the articles brought. 
 
 On the day fixed for the marriage, an intelligent female servant 
 
MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 436 
 
 of the second class* is sent to the house of the bride to attend her, 
 and the bride's father, having invited all his kinsfolk, entertains 
 them previous to the bride's departure. 
 
 The bridal party sets out in norimons, the mediator's wife first, 
 then the bride, then the bride's mother, and, finally, her father. 
 The mediator has already preceded them to the bridegroom's 
 house. The bride is dressed in white (white being the color for 
 mourning among the Japanese), being considered as thenceforward 
 dead to her parents. 
 
 If all the ceremonies are to be observed, there should be stationed, 
 at the right of the entrance to the house of the bridegroom, an old 
 woman, and on the left an old man, each with a mortar containing 
 some rice-cakes. As the bride's norimon reaches the house, they 
 begin to pound their respective mortars, the man saying, " A thou 
 sand years ! " the woman, " Ten thousand ! " — allusions to the 
 reputed terms of life of the crane and the tortoise thus invoked for 
 the bride. As the norimon passes between them, the man pours his 
 cakes into the woman's mortar, and both pound together. What is 
 thus pounded is moulded into two cakes, which are put one upon 
 another and receive a conspicuous place in the toko t of the room 
 where the marriage is to be celebrated. 
 
 The norimon is met within the passage by the bridegroom, who 
 stands in his dress of ceremony ready to receive it. There is also a 
 woman seated there with a lantern, and several others behind her 
 It was, as already mentioned, by the light of this lantern that for- 
 merly the groom first saw his bride, and, if dissatisfied with her, 
 exercised his right of putting a stop to the ceremony. The bride, 
 on seeing the bridegroom, reaches to him, through the front window 
 of her norimon, her marmori, t and he hands it to a female servant 
 
 * There are three classes of women-servants. Those of the first class make 
 the clothes of the mistress, dress her hair, and keep her apartments in order. 
 Those of the second wait on her at meals, accompany her when she goes 
 abroad, and attend to other domestic duties. Those of the third are employed 
 in cooking and various menial offices. 
 
 t The toko, as already described in Chap, xxxn., is a sort of recess, or open 
 closet, opposite the entrance, considered the most honorable place in the 
 room. The above ceremony might call to mind the con)\irralio of the 
 ancient Roman marriage. 
 
 X This is a small, scpuare or oblong bag, containing a small image of metal, 
 
436 JAPAN. — A. D. 1779—1791 
 
 who takes it into the apartment prepared for the wedding and 
 hangs it up. The bride is also led to her apartment, the woman 
 with the lantern preceding. 
 
 The marriage being now about -to take place, the bride is led, by 
 one of her waiting- women, into the room where it is to be cele- 
 brated, and is seated there with two female attendants on either 
 side. The bridegroom then leaves his room and comes into this 
 apartment. No other persons are present except the mediator and 
 his wife. The formality of the marriage consists in drinking 
 saki after a particular manner. The saki is poured out by two 
 young girls, one of whom is called the male butterfly, and the other 
 the female butterfly, — appellations derived from their susu, or 
 saki-jugs, each of which is adorned with a paper butterfly. As 
 these insects always fly about in pairs, it is intended to intimate 
 that so the husband and wife ought to be continually together. The 
 male butterfly always pours out the saki to be drank, but, before 
 doing so, turns a little to the left, when the female butterfly pours 
 from her jug a little saki into the jug of the other, who then pro- 
 ceeds to pour out for the ceremony. For drinking it, three bowls 
 are used, placed on a tray or waiter, one within the other. The 
 bride takes the uppermost, holds it in both hands, while some saki 
 is poured into it, sips a little, three several times, and then hands 
 it to the groom. He drinks three times in like manner, puts the 
 bowl under the third, takes the second, hands it to be filled, drinks 
 out of it three times, and passes it to the bride. She drinks three 
 times, puts the second bowl under the first, takes the third, holds it 
 to be filled, drinks three times, and then hands it to the groom, who 
 does the same, and afterwards puts this bowl under the first. 
 This ceremony constitutes the marriage. The bride's parents, who 
 meanwhile were in another room, being informed that this ceremony 
 is over, come in, as do the bridegroom's parents And brothers, and 
 seat themselves in a certain order. The saki, with other refresh- 
 ments interspersed, is then served, by the two butterflies, to these 
 relations of the married parties in a prescribed order, indicated by 
 the mediator ; the two families, by this ceremony, extending, as it 
 
 wood or stone, supposed to operate as a sort of amulet, something like the 
 medicine-bag of our North American Indians. 
 
MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 437 
 
 were, to each other the alliance already contracted between the 
 bride and bridegroom. 
 
 Next follows the delivery of certain presents on the part of the 
 bride to the bridegroom, his relatives and the servants of the house- 
 hold. These are brought by a female, who arranges them in order 
 in an adjoining room, and hands written lists of them to the medi- 
 ator, who passes it to the bridegroom's father, who, having received 
 the paper, returns thanks, then reads the lists aloud, and again 
 returns thanks. 
 
 The bridegroom then presents the bride with two robes, one with 
 a red and the other with a black ground, embroidered with gold or 
 silver. The bride retires, puts on these robes, and again returns. 
 Refreshments of a peculiar kind then follow, the bride, to spare hei 
 bashfulness, being suffered to eat in a room by herself. 
 
 This entertainment over, the parents of the bride prepare to 
 leave her. They are accompanied by those of the bridegroom, and 
 by the bride herself, to the door ; the bridegroom with two servants 
 bears candles, shows the way, and takes leave with compliments. 
 
 Sometimes the bridegroom proceeds, that same night, with his 
 parents and the mediator, to the house of the bride's father, where 
 the contracting of relationship by drinking saki is again gone 
 through with, the bride remaining behind in her husband's house, 
 where she is meanwhile entertained by his brothers. On this occa- 
 sion the father of the bride presents his new son-in-law with a 
 sabre. Presents are also delivered on the part of the bridegroom 
 to the bride's relations. 
 
 The feasting over, the bridegroom and his parents return home, 
 and are received at the door by the bride. 
 
 In making the bed for the bride, her pillow is placed towards the 
 north (the practice followed with the dead, for she is thenceforward 
 to be considered as dead to her parents). Such is stated to have 
 been the ancient custom, though now generally disused. 
 
 The beds having been prepared, the bride is conducted to hers by 
 one of the women appointed to attend her, and the same person 
 introduces the bridegroom into the apartment. The young couple 
 are waited on by the male and female butterflies. One of the 
 bride's women sleeps secretly in the adjoining chamber. 
 
 The bridal chamber is abundantly furnished with all the numer 
 37* 
 
438 JAPAN. — A. D. 1779—1791. 
 
 cms articles of the Japanese toilet, including a greater or less quan- 
 tity, according to their rank, of wearing apparel, hung on movable 
 racks or clothes-horses. 
 
 In families of the rank of the governors of Nagasaki the bride 
 is portioned with twelve robes, each' upon a distinct horse ; namely, 
 a blue robe, for the first month, embroidered with fir-trees or bam- 
 boos ; a sea-green robe, for the second month, with cherry flowers 
 and buttercups; a robe of light red,. for the third month, with 
 willows and cherry-trees; a robe of pearl color, for the fourth 
 month, embroidered with the cuckoo, and small spots representing 
 islands ; a robe of faint yellow, for the fifth month, embroidered 
 with waves and sword-grass ; a robe of bright orange, for the sixth 
 month, embroidered with melons and with an impetuous torrent — 
 the rainy season falling in this and the previous month; a white 
 robe, for the seventh month, with kiki flowers, white and purple ; a 
 red robe, for the eighth month, sprinkled with sloe-leaves ; a 
 violet robe, for the ninth month, embroidered with flowers of the 
 Chrysanthemum indicum-, a very splendid flower ; an olive-colored 
 robe, for the tenth month, with representations of a road and ears 
 of rice cut off; a black robe, for the eleventh month, embroidered 
 with emblems of ice and icicles ; a purple robe, for the twelfth 
 month, embroidered with emblems of snow. Beyond some per- 
 sonal outfit of this sort, it is said not to be the custom to portion 
 daughters. 
 
 Next morning the young couple take a warm bath, and then 
 breakfast together. Soon after numerous presents come in, of which 
 a careful account is kept; the bride also receives visits of con- 
 gratulation. The day after, all the bridegroom's people are treated 
 with cakes in the apartment of the bride ; and rice-cake, put up 
 in boxes, is sent to all the near relations who did not .attend the 
 wedding. 
 
 After the expiration of three days the bride pays a visit to her 
 parents, preceded by a present from her husband, one corresponding 
 to which is sent back when the bride returns. All the preceding 
 ceremonies over, the bride, accompanied by her mother-in-law, or 
 some aged female relative, pays a visit to all who have sent her 
 presents, thanks them, and offers a suitable return, — a supply of 
 suitable presents for this purpose having been provided for hei 
 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 439 
 
 before she left her father's house. Seven days after the wedding, 
 the bridegroom and four or five of his intimate friends are invited 
 by the parents of the bride to a grand entertainment. A few days 
 after, ttte bridegroom invites the relatives of the bride to a similar 
 entertainment, and so the matrimonial solemnities terminate. 
 
 The Japanese have two ways of disposing of the dead — dosi, or 
 interment, gunso, or burning — and persons about to die generally 
 state which method they prefer. 
 
 Of the funeral ceremonies observed at Nagasaki, Titsingh gives 
 the following account : The body, after being carefully washed 
 by a favorite servant, and the head shaved, is clothed according 
 to the state of the weather, and (if a female, in her best apparel) 
 exactly as in life, except that the sash is tied, not in a bow, 
 but strongly fastened with two knots, to indicate that it is never 
 more to be loosed. The body is then covered with a piece 
 of linen, folded in a peculiar manner, and is placed on a mat in the 
 middle of the hall, the head to the north. Food is offered to it, 
 and all the family lament. 
 
 After being kept for forty-eight hours, the body is placed on its 
 knees in a tub-shaped cofiin, which is enclosed in a square, oblong 
 box, or bier, the top of which is roof-shaped, called quan. Two 
 ifays are also prepared — wooden tablets of a peculiar shape and 
 fashion, containing inscriptions commemorative of the deceased, the 
 time of his decease, and the name given to him since that event. 
 
 The ifays and quan, followed by the eldest son and the family, 
 servants, friends and acquaintances, are borne in a procession, with 
 flags, lanterns, &c, to one of the neighboring temples, whence, after 
 certain ceremonies, in which the priests take a leading part, they 
 are carried, by the relatives only, to the grave, where a priest, 
 while waiting their arrival, repeats certain hymns. The moment they 
 are come, the tub containing the body is taken out of the quan and 
 deposited in the grave, which is then filled with earth and covered 
 with a fiat stone, which again is covered with earth, and over the 
 whole is placed the quan and one of the ifays, which is removed at 
 the end of seven weeks, to make room for the sisek, or grave-stone. 
 If the deceased had preferred to be burnt, the quan is taken to the 
 summit of one of two neighboring mountains, on the top of each of 
 which is a sort of furnace, prepared for this purpose, enclosed in a 
 
440 JAPAN- — A. D. 1779—1791. 
 
 email hut. The coffin is then taken from the quan, and, being 
 placed in the furnace, a great fire is kindled. The eldest son is 
 provided with an earthen urn, in which first the bones and then the 
 ashes are put, after which the mouth of the urn is sealed up. 
 While the body is burning, a priest recites hymns. The urn is 
 then carried to the grave, and deposited in it, and, the grave being 
 filled up, the quan is placed over it. 
 
 The eldest son and his brothers are dressed in white, in garments 
 of undyed hempen stuff, as are the bearers, and all females attend- 
 ing the funeral, whether relatives or not ; the others wear their 
 usual dresses. The females are carried in norimons, behind the 
 male part of the procession, which proceeds on foot, the nearest 
 relatives coming first. The eldest daughter takes precedence 
 of the wife. The eldest son and heir, whether by blood or adop- 
 tion, who is the chief mourner, wears also a broad-brimmed hat, of 
 rushes, which hang about his shoulders, and in this attire does not 
 recognize nor salute anybody. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance that relatives in the ascending 
 line, and seniors, never attend the funerals of their junior kindred, 
 nor go into mourning for them. Thus, if the second son should 
 die, neither father, mother, uncle, aunt, elder brother nor elder sis- 
 ter, would attend the funeral. 
 
 The laboring classes are not required to go into mourning ; yet 
 some of them do for two, three, or four days. With them the 
 burial takes place after twenty-four hours. With the upper class 
 the mourning is fixed at fifty days. It used to be twice that time, 
 but is said to have been cut down by Jesi Jas (founder of the reign- 
 ing dynasty), that the business of the public functionaries might 
 suffer the less interruption. Persons in mourning stay at home, 
 abstain from animal food of any description, and from saki, and 
 neither cut their nails nor shave their heads. 
 
 One of the ifays is left, as has been mentioned, at the grave ; the 
 other, during the period of mourning, is set up in the best apart- 
 ment of the house of the deceased. Sweetmeats, fruit and tea, are 
 placed before it, and morning, noon and night, food is offered to it, 
 served up as to a living person. Two candles, fixed in candlesticks, 
 burn by it, night and day, and a lighted lantern is hung up on 
 either side. The whole household, of both sexes, servants included, 
 
MOURNING. 441 
 
 pray before it morning and evening. This is kept up for seven 
 weeks, and during each week, from the day of the death, a priest 
 attends and reads hymns for an hour before the ifay. He is each 
 time supplied with ornaments, and paid a fee of from five to six mas. 
 
 During these seven weeks the son goes every day, be the weather 
 what it may, and says a prayer by the grave. He wears his rush 
 hat, through which he can see without being seen, speaks tc 
 nobody, and is dressed in white. With this exception, and a cere 
 monious visit, in the third, fourth or fifth week, to the relatives and 
 friends, he remains in his house, with the door fastened. It is cus- 
 tomary to erect a small hut near the grave, in which a servant 
 watches, noting down the names of all who come to visit it. 
 
 When the seven weeks are over, the mourner shaves and dresses, 
 opens his door, and goes, if an officer, to inform the governor that 
 his days of mourning are over, He next pays a complimentary 
 visit to all who attended the funeral, or have visited the grave, 
 •sending them also a complimentary present. The sisek, or grave- 
 stone (almost precisely like those in use with us), is placed over the 
 grave, and two ifays, varnished black and superbly gilt, are provided, 
 one of which is sent to a temple. The other remains at home, 
 kept in a case in a small apartment, appropriated for that purpose, 
 in which are kept the ifays of all the ancestors of the family. It 
 is customary every morning, after rising and dressing, to take the 
 ifay out of its case, and to burn a little incense before it, bowing 
 the head in token of respect. 
 
 Though the wearing of white garments and other formalities of 
 the special mourning, called imi, cease at the end of fifty days at 
 the longest, bright colors are not to be worn, or a Sinto temple to 
 be entered, for thirteen months, and this is called buku. For a 
 husband, imi lasts thirty days and buku thirteen months. For a 
 wife, imi twenty days and buku three months ; for grand-parents and 
 uncles, the periods are thirty days and five months ; for an eldest 
 brother or sister, or aunt on the father's side, and great-grand-par- 
 ents, twenty days and three months ; for great-great-grand-parents 
 and aunts on the mother's side, fathers and mothers-in-law, brother-in- 
 law or sister-in-law, or eldest grandchild, ten days and one month ; 
 for other grandchildren, and for cousins of either sex, and their 
 children, three days and seven days. For children under the 
 
442 JAPAN. — A. D. 1775-1776. 
 
 age of seven years, whatever tlie relationship, there is no mourn 
 ing. 
 
 The great dignitaries must wear mourning for the Siogun ; all 
 officers, civil and military, for their princes; and whoever derives 
 his subsistence from another must mourn for him as for a father. 
 Pupils also must mourn for their teacher, education being esteemed 
 equivalent to a livelihood. The sons of a mother, repudiated by her 
 husband and expelled from his house, mourn for her as if dead. 
 
 In case of persons holding office, who die suddenly without pre- 
 viously having resigned in favor of their heirs, it is not unusual to 
 bury them, the night after their death, in a private manner. The 
 death, though whispered about, is not officially announced. The 
 heir, who dresses and acts as usual, notifies the authorities that his 
 father is sick and wishes to resign. Having obtained the succes- 
 sion, he soon after announces his father's death, and the formal 
 funeral and mourning then take place. 
 
 The honors paid to deceased parents do not terminate with the 
 mourning. Every month, on the day of the ancestor's decease, for 
 fifty, or even for a hundred years, food, sweetmeats and fruit, are set 
 before the ifay. One hundred days after the decease of a father or 
 mother, an entertainment is to be given to all the intimate friends, 
 including the priest who presided at the funeral. This is to be 
 repeated a year from the death ; and again on the third, seventh, 
 thirteenth, twenty--fifth,«thirty-third, fiftieth, hundredth, and hun- 
 dred and fiftieth anniversary, and so on, as long as the family 
 exists. To securejthe due payment to themselves of funeral hon- 
 ors, those who have no sons of their own adopt one. If any acci- 
 dent, fortunate or disastrous, happens to the family, it is formally 
 communicated to the ifays, such as the birth of a child, a safe 
 return from a journey, &c. In case of floods or fires, the ifays 
 must be saved in preference to everything else, their loss being 
 regarded as the greatest of misfortunes. 
 
 The fifteenth day of the seventh Japanese month is a festival, 
 devoted to the honor of parents and ancestors. Every Japanese, 
 whose parents are still living, considers this a happy day. People 
 regale themselves and their children with fish. Married sons and 
 daughters, or adopted sons, send presents to their parents. On the 
 evening of the 13th, the ifays are taken from their cases, and a 
 
FEAST OF LANTERNS. 443 
 
 repast set before them, of vegetables and the fruits then ripening. 
 In the middle is set a vase, in which perfumes are burnt, and other 
 vases containing flowers. The next day, meals of rice, tea and 
 other food, are regularly served to the ifays, as to living guests. 
 
 Towards evening, lanterns, suspended from long bamboos, are 
 lighted before each sisek, or grave-stone, and refreshments are also 
 placed there. This is repeated on the fifteenth. Before daylight 
 of the sixteenth the articles placed at the graves are packed into 
 small boats of straw, provided with sails of paper or cloth, which 
 are carried in procession with vocal and instrumental music, and 
 loud cries, to the water-side, where they are launched, by way of 
 dismissing the souls of the dead, who are supposed now to return to 
 their graves. " This festival," says Titsingh, speaking of its cele- 
 bration at Nagasaki, " produces a highly picturesque effect. Out- 
 side the town, the view of it from the island Desima is one of the 
 most beautiful. The spectator would almost imagine that he beheld 
 a torrent of "fire pouring from the hill, owing to the immense num- 
 ber of small boats that are carried to the shore to be turned adrift 
 on the sea. In the middle of the night, and when there is a brisk 
 wind, the agitation of the water causing all these lights to dance to 
 and fro, produces an enchanting scene. The noise and bustle in 
 the town, the sound of gongs and the voices of the priests, combine 
 to form a discord that can scarcely be conceived. The whole bay 
 seems to be covered with ignes fatui. Though these barks have 
 sails of paper, or stronger stuff, very few of them pass the place 
 where our ships lie at anchor. In spite of the guards, thousands 
 of paupers rush into the water to secure the small copper coin and 
 other things placed in them. Next day, they strip the barks of all 
 that is left, and the tide carries them out to sea. Thus terminates 
 this ceremony." * 
 
 * Father Vilela, in a letter written from Sacai, 15G2, in the month of 
 August (at -which time this festival happens), describes it in a very lively 
 manner. He represents the people as going out two days before, as if to 
 meet their dead relations, spreading a feast to refresh them after their long 
 journey, escorting them to their houses, talking to them as if they were 
 present, and, finally, dismissing them with torches, lest they might stumble 
 in the dark, or miss their way. This, Vilela adds, is a great time for the 
 bonzes, the very poorest offering them some gift, fur their religious aid on 
 this occasion. 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 EXPLORATION OP THE NORTHERN JAPANESE SEAS. — FIRST RUSSIAN MISSION 
 TO JAPAN. PROFESSORSHIP OF JAPANESE AT IRKUTSK. NEW RESTRIC- 
 TIONS ON THE DUTCH. EMBARRASSMENTS GROWING OUT OF THE WAR OF 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. AMERICAN FLAG AT NAGASAKI. CAPTAIN 
 
 STEWART. INGENUITY OF A JAPANESE FISHERMAN. HEER DOEFF, DI- 
 RECTOR AT DESIMA. SUSPICIOUS PROCEEDINGS OF CAPTAIN STEWART. 
 
 RUSSIAN EMBASSY. — KLAPROTH'S KNOWLEDGE OF JAPANESE. — DOEFF'S 
 
 FIRST JOURNEY TO JEDO. DUTCH TRADE IN 1804 AND 180». AN AMER- 
 ICAN SHIP AT NAGASAKI. THE BRITISH FRIGATE PHAETON. NO SHIPS 
 
 FROM BATAVIA. — THE DUTCH ON SHORT ALLOWANCE. ENGLISH SHIPS 
 
 FROM BATAVIA. COMMUNICATION AGAIN SUSPENDED. DUTCH AND JAP- 
 ANESE DICTIONARY. — CHILDREN AT THE FACTORY. — A. D. 1792—1817- 
 
 Till comparatively a recent period Europe was very much in 
 the dark as to the geography of north-eastern Asia. Through the 
 explorations and conquests of the Russians, Kamtchatka (long be- 
 fore visited by the Japanese) first became known to Europeans, 
 about the year 1700. The exploration of the Kurile Islands, 
 stretching from the southern point of that peninsula, led the Rus- 
 sians towards Japan. In 1713 the Cossack Kosierewski reached 
 Konashir (the twentieth Kurile, according to the Russian reckoning, 
 beginning from Kamtchatka), close to the north-eastern coast of 
 Jeso, and claimed by the Japanese. In 1736, Spagenburg, a Dane 
 in the Russian service, visited all the southern Kuriles, coasted the 
 island of Jeso, made the land of Nipon, and entered several har- 
 bors on its eastern caaai. These explorations were renewed by 
 Potonchew, in 1777 ; but it was not till 1787 that La Perouse 
 obtained for Europe the first distinct knowledge of the outline of 
 the Sea of Japan, of the relative situations of Sagaleen and Jeso, 
 and of the strait between them, which still bears his name. 
 
RUSSIAN MISSION THITHER. 445 
 
 In 1791, the Argonaut, an English ship employed in the fur 
 trade on the north-west coast of America, made the western coast 
 of Japan, and attempted to trade ; but she was immediately sur- 
 rounded by lines of boats ; all intercourse with the shore was pre- 
 vented, and she was dismissed with a gratuitous supply of wood 
 and water. In 1795-7, Captain Broughton, in an English explor- 
 ing vessel, coasted the southern and eastern shore of Jeso, sailed 
 among the southern Kuriles, and touched at several places on the 
 southern part of Sagaleen. Besides the natives, he found a few 
 Japanese, who treated him with much attention, but were very 
 anxious for his speedy departure. Japanese officers came from 
 Jeso, expressly to look after him, to restrict his communications 
 and to send him off, with all civility indeed, but as speedily as 
 possible. 
 
 Previous to Broughton's voyage, Russia had already made a first 
 attempt at a commercial and diplomatic intercourse with Japan. 
 The crew of a Japanese vessel, shipwrecked in the Sea of Okhotsk, 
 had been saved by the Russians, about 1782, and taken to Irkutsk, 
 in Siberia, where they lived for ten years. At length the governor 
 of Siberia was directed, by the empress Catherine II., to send home 
 these Japanese, and with them an envoy, not as from her, but from 
 himself. Lieutenant Laxman, selected for this purpose, sailed from 
 Okhotsk in the autumn of 1792, landed on the northern coast of 
 Jeso, and passed the winter there. The next summer he entered 
 the harbor of Hakodade, on the northern coast of the Strait of 
 Sangar. From that town he travelled by land to the city of Mats- 
 mai, three days' journey to the west, and the chief Japanese settle- 
 ment on the island, the authorities of which, after communicating 
 with Jedo, delivered to him a paper to the following effect : " That 
 although it was ordained by the laws of Japan, that any foreigners 
 landing anywhere on the coast, except at Nagasaki, should be seized 
 and condemned to perpetual imprisonment ; yet, considering the 
 ignorance of the Russians, and their having brought back the ship- 
 wrecked Japanese, they might be permitted to depart, on condition 
 of never approaching, under any pretence, anj part of the coast 
 except Nagasaki. As to the Japanese brought back, the govern- 
 ment was much obliged to the Russians ; who, however, were at 
 liberty to leave them or take them away again, as they pleased, it 
 38 
 
4=46 JAPAN. — A. D. 1792— 1817. 
 
 being the law of Japan that such persons ceased to be Japanese, 
 and became the subjects of that government into whose hands des- 
 tiny had cast them. With respect to commercial negotiations, those 
 could only take place at Nagasaki ; and a paper was sent author- 
 izing a Russian vessel to enter that port for that purpose ; but as 
 the Christian worship was not allowed in Japan, any persons ad- 
 mitted into Nagasaki must carefully abstain from it." 
 
 Laxman was treated with great courtesy, though kept in a sort of 
 confinement ; he was supported, with his crew, by the Japanese 
 authorities, while he remained, and was dismissed with presents and 
 an ample supply of provisions, for which no payment would be 
 received. 
 
 Here the matter rested for several years ; but into a school for 
 teaching navigation, which Catherine II. established at Irkutsk, the 
 capital of Eastern Siberia, she introduced a professorship of the Jap- 
 anese language, the professors being taken from among the Japanese 
 shipwrecked from time to time on the coast of Siberia. Meanwhile, 
 even the Dutch commerce to Japan had undergone some new re- 
 strictions. Whether from the prevalence of the " frog-in-a-well " 
 policy, or from apprehensions, as it was said, of the exhaustion of 
 the copper mines, the Dutch in 1790 were limited to a single ship 
 annually, while, to accommodate their expenditures to this diminished 
 trade, the hitherto yearly embassy to Jedo was to be sent only once 
 in four years, though annual presents to the emperor and his officers 
 were still required as before. 
 
 The occupation of Holland by the French armies not only ex- 
 posed Dutch. vessels to capture by the English, it cost Holland sev- 
 eral of her eastern colonies, and thus placed new obstacles in the 
 way of the Japanese trade. It was no doubt to diminish the dan- 
 ger of capture by the British, that, in the year 1797, the ship de- 
 spatched from Batavia sailed under the American flag, and carried 
 American papers, while the commander, one Captain Stewart, though 
 in reality an Englishman from Madras or Bengal, passed for an 
 American, and his ship as the Eliza, of New York. That the 
 crew of this vessel spoke English, and not Dutch, was immediately 
 noticed by the interpreters at Nagasaki, and produced a great 
 sensation among the Japanese officials ; but at last, after vast 
 difficulty, they were made to understand that though the crew 
 
INGENUITY OF A JAPANESE FISHERMAN. 447 
 
 ^poke English, they were not " the English," but of another na- 
 tion, and, what was a still more essential point, that they had 
 nothing to do with the trade, but were merely hired to bring the 
 goods in order to save them from capture ; as a result of which 
 explanation it was finally agreed that the Eliza should be con- 
 sidered as a Dutch ship. 
 
 The same vessel and captain returned again the next year ; but 
 in leaving the harbor for Batavia, loaded with camphor and copper, 
 she struck a hidden rock, and sunk. The first scheme hit upon for 
 raising the vessel was to send down divers to discharge the copper ; 
 but two of them lost their lives from the suffocating effect of the 
 melting camphor, and this scheme had to be abandoned. Heavily 
 laden as she was, every effort at raising her proved abortive, till 
 at last the object was accomplished by a Japanese fisherman, who 
 volunteered his services. He fastened to each side of the sunken 
 vessel some fifteen of the Japanese boats used in towing, and a 
 large Japanese coasting craft to the stern, and, taking advantage of 
 a stiff breeze and a spring tide, dragged the sunken vessel from the 
 rock, and towed her into a spot where, upon the ebbing of the tide, 
 she could be discharged without difficulty. For this achieve- 
 ment the fisherman was raised, by the prince of Fisen, to which 
 province he belonged, to the rank of a noble, being privileged to 
 wear two swords, and to take as his insignia or arms a Dutch hat 
 and two tobacco pipes. 
 
 When repaired and reloaded, the Eliza sailed again ; but being 
 dismasted in a storm, returned to refit, by reason of which she was 
 detained so long, that the ship of 1799, also under American colors, 
 and this time it would seem a real American, the Franklin, Cap- 
 tain Devereux, arrived at Nagasaki, and was nearly loaded before 
 Captain Stewart was ready to sail. In this ship of 1799 came out, 
 to be stationed as an officer at the factory, Heer Hendrick Doeff, who 
 remained there for the next seventeen years, and to whose Recollec 
 tions of Japan, written in Dutch, and published in Holland in 
 1835, we arc greatly indebted for what we know of the occurrences 
 in Japan during that period. It was, however, a very unfortunate 
 circumstance, tending considerably to diminish the value of Vis 
 book, that all his papers were lost by the foundering oT the ship in 
 ffhich he sailed from Batavia for Holland, in 1819, the crew and 
 
448 JAPAN. — A. D. 1792—1817. 
 
 passengers escaping barely with their lives ; after which, he allowed 
 near fifteen years more to pass before he drew upon his memory for 
 the materials of his book, which was only published at length to 
 correct some misapprehensions, upon matters personal to himself, 
 likely to arise, as he feared, from publications which preceded his 
 own. His book, indeed, is mainly devoted to the defence of the 
 Dutch nation and the affairs of the factory, against the strictures 
 of Raffles and others, throwing only some incidental light upon the 
 Japanese, the knowledge of whom,.so far as it is accessible to resi- 
 dents at Desima, had indeed been pretty well exhausted by previous 
 writers. 
 
 Captain Stewart, refusing to wait for the other ship, set sail at 
 once ; but he did not arrive at.Batavia. He reappeared, however, 
 the next year at Nagasaki, representing himself as having been ship- 
 wrecked, with the loss of everything ; but as having found a friend 
 at Manilla, who had enabled him to buy and lade the brig in which 
 he had now come back, for the purpose, as he said, of discharging, 
 out of the sale of her cargo, his debt due to the factory for the ad- 
 vances made for the repairs of his lost vessel. Heer Wadenaar, the 
 director, saw, however, or thought he saw, in this proceeding, a 
 scheme for gaining a commercial footing at Nagasaki, independent 
 of the regular trade from Batavia. He caused the goods to be sold 
 and applied to the discharge of Stewart's debt ; but he declined to 
 furnish any return cargo for the brig, and he arrested Stewart, and 
 sent him a prisoner to Batavia ; whence, however, soon after his 
 arrival there, he made his escape. He reappeared again at Nagasaki 
 in 1803, still under the American flag, but coming now from Ben- 
 gal and Canton, with a cargo of Indian and Chinese goods. He solic- 
 ited permission to trade and to supply himself with water and oil. 
 With these latter he was gratuitously furnished, but liberty to trade 
 was refused, and he was compelled to depart ; nor was anything 
 further heard of him. Doeff seems to have supposed him a real 
 American, and his last expedition an American adventure ; but 
 in a pamphlet on Java and its trade, published at Batavia in 1800, 
 by Heer Hagendorp, and quoted by Raffles in his history of Java 
 Stewart is expressly stated to have been an Englishman from Ma- 
 dras or Bengal, — a statement which seems to be confirmed by his 
 coming from Bengal on his la^t arrival at Nagasaki, and & tact aa 
 
RUSSIAN EMBASSY. 449 
 
 to which Hagendorp, who held a high official position, would nol 
 have been likely to be mistaken.* 
 
 The next circumstance of importance mentioned by Doeff was the 
 arrival in October, 1804, in the harbor of Nagasaki, of a Russian 
 vessel, commanded by Captain Krusenstern, and having on board 
 Count Resanoff, sent as ambassador from the Czar, in somewhat 
 late prosecution of the negotiation commenced by Laxman in 1792. 
 This vessel brought back a number of shipwrecked Japanese,! and 
 her coming had been notified to the governor of Nagasaki, through 
 the medium of the Dutch authorities at Batavia and Desinia. 
 There are two Russian narratives of this expedition, one by' Kru- 
 senstern, the other by Langsdorff, who was attached to the embassy. 
 Both ascribe the failure of the mission to the jealous opposition of 
 the Dutch. Doeff, on the contrary, insists that he did everything 
 he could — : for by this time he was director — to aid the Russians, 
 and that they had only to blame their own obstinacy in refusing to 
 yield to the demands of the Japanese. 
 
 The dispute began upon the very first boarding of the Russian 
 ship, on which occasion the Japanese officers took the Dutch di- 
 rector with them. Resanoff consented to give up his powder, but 
 insisted upon retaining his arms ; he also refused those prostra- 
 tions which the boarding-officers demanded as representatives 
 of the emperor. These points were referred to Jedo ; but, mean- 
 time (Doeff says, through his solicitations), the ship with the arms on 
 board was permitted to anchor. The Dutch and Russians were 
 allowed to pass the first evening together, but afterwards they were 
 jealously separated, though they contrived to keep up an occasional 
 intercourse through the connivance of the interpreters. The annual 
 ship from Batavia, this year Dutch, then at Desima, was removed 
 to au:+her and distant berth. When she left, no letters were 
 allowed to be sent by the Russians, except a bare despatch, first 
 
 * Krusenstern, in his narrative of the Russian embassy of Resanoff (as to 
 which see next paragraph of the text), speaks of the last expedition of Stew- 
 art as fitted out by some English merchants in Calcutta, and gives to the 
 captain the name of Torey. Very likely he had both names. 
 
 t The whole party consisted of fifteen, but of these only five, and those fh<> 
 most worthless, were willing to return home. The others preferred to remain 
 in Siberia. 
 
 38* 
 
450 .JAPAN. — A. D. 1792—1817. 
 
 inspected by the governor, notifying the ambassadors arrival, and 
 the health ofihis company. Nor were the Dutch allowed, in passing 
 even to return the salutation of the Russians. The Dutch captain put 
 his trumpet to his lips, but was under strict orders from the direc- 
 tor not to speak a word — a discourtesy, as they thought it, which 
 the Russians highly resented. Of the Russians, none were allowed 
 to land till two months and a half after their arrival, the matter 
 having first been referred to Jedo. Finally, a fish-house, on a 
 small island, closely hedged in with bamboos, so that nothing could 
 be seen, was fitted up for the ambassador. All the arms were 
 given up, except the swords of the officers and the muskets of seven 
 soldiers who landed with the ambassador, but who had no powder 
 The ship was constantly surrounded by guard-boats. 
 
 After a detention of near six months, a commissioner from Jedo 
 made his appearance, with the emperor's answer. The ambas 
 sador, having been carried on shore in the barge of the prince of 
 Figen, was conveyed to the governor's house in the norimon of th» 
 Dutch director, borrowed for the occasion ; but all his suite had tt, 
 walk, and, in order that they might see nothing, the doors ani 
 windows of the houses, wherever they passed, were closed; the 
 street gates were fastened, and the inhabitants were ordered to keep 
 at home. A second interview took place the next day, when a flat 
 refusal was returned to all the ambassador's requests, and even the 
 presents for the emperor were declined. 
 
 In the midst of all these annoyances everything was done with 
 the greatest show of politeness. The emperor's answer, which 
 Doeff was called upon to assist in translating into Dutch, placed 
 the refusal to receive the ambassador or his presents on the ground 
 that, if they were received, it would be necessary to send back an 
 ambassador with equal presents, to which not only the grea + poverty 
 of the Japanese was an obstacle, but also the strict law, in force for 
 a hundred and fifty years past, against any Japanese subject or 
 vessel going to foreign countries. It was also stated that Japan 
 had no great wants, and little occasion for foreign productions, of 
 Which the Dutch and Chinese already brought as much as was 
 required, and that any considerable trade could only be established 
 oy means of an intercourse between foreigners and Japanese, whicfc 
 the laws strictly forbade 
 
d.teff's journey to jedo. 451 
 
 The ambassador did not depart without bitter reproaches against 
 Doeff, whom he charged as the author of his miscarriage. He ar- 
 rived at Okhotsk in May, 1805, afterwards passed over to Sitka, on 
 the American coast, and the next year, having returned again to 
 Okhotsk, despatched two small Russian vessels to make reprisals on 
 the Japanese. They landed on the coast of Sagaleen, in the years 
 1806 and 1807, plundered a Japanese settlement, loaded their 
 vessels with the booty, carried off several Kurile and two Japanese 
 prisoners, and left behind written notifications, in Russian and 
 French, that this had been done in revenge for the slights put upon 
 Resanoff. 
 
 In 1805 and 1806, Klaproth, the learned Orientalist, passed 
 some months at Irkutsk, as secretary to a Russian embassy to 
 China. He found the Japanese professorship, established there by 
 Catherine II., filled by a Japanese, who had embraced the Greek 
 religion, and, from him and the books which he furnished, Klaproth 
 acquired such knowledge as he had of the Japanese tongue. 
 
 In the spring of 1806, Doeff made his first journey to Jedo. In 
 the arrangements of the journey and the audience, there seems to 
 to have been no change since the time of Thunberg. While he was 
 at Jedo a tremendous fire broke out. It began, at a distance from 
 his lodgings, at ten in the morning. At one the Dutch took the 
 alarm, and began to pack. At three they fled. " On issuing into 
 the street," says Doeff, " we saw everything in flames. There was 
 great danger in endeavoring to escape before the wind, in the same 
 direction taken by the fire. We, therefore, took a slanting direction, 
 through a street already burning, and thus succeeded in reaching 
 an open field. It was studded with the standards of princes, whose 
 dwellings had been destroyed, and whose wives and children had 
 fled thither for refuge. We followed their example, and marked 
 out a spot with our Dutch flags. We had now a full view of the 
 fire, and never did I see anything so terrific. The terrors of this 
 ocean of flame were enhanced by the heart-rending cries of the 
 fugitive women and children." The fire raged till noon the next 
 day, when it was extinguished by a fall of rain." The Dutch 
 
 * Golownin was informed, during his captivity at Matsmai, that it is pan 
 of the duty of the Japanese soldiers to assist in extinguishing fires, for which 
 purpose they are provided with a fireman's dress of varnished leather. Tt 
 
452 - JAPAN. — A. D. 1792—1817. 
 
 learned from their host, that, within five minutes after they left, 
 the fire took his house, and destroyed everything — ls an indemnity 
 for which, the Dutch East India Company allowed him annually, 
 for three years, from twelve to fourteen hundred weight of sugar. 
 The palaces of thirty-seven princes had been destroyed. The 
 weight of fugitives broke down the famous Niponbas, or bridge of 
 Japan, so that, besides those burned to death, many were drowned, 
 including a daughter of the prince of Awa. Twelve hundred lives 
 were said to have been lost. 
 
 On this occasion the Dutch were greatly aided by a wealthy 
 Japanese merchant, who sent forty men to assist them in removing. 
 He lost his shop, or store, and a warehouse, containing a hundred 
 thousand pounds of spun silk, yet the day after the fire was en- 
 gaged in rebuilding his premises. 
 
 The Dutch, burnt out of their inn, were lodged at first in the 
 house of the governor of Nagasaki ; but, four days after, procured a 
 new inn. This was in a more public place than the old obscure 
 lodging. The appearance of the Dutch on the balcony attracted 
 crowds of curious spectators, and soon drew out an order, from the 
 governor of Jedo, that they should keep within doors. But Doeff 
 refused to obey this Order, on the ground that, during their entire 
 embassy, the Dutch were under the authority only of the governor 
 of Nagasaki ; and in this position he was sustained by that per- 
 sonage. 
 
 After the audienee the Dutch received many visits, particularly 
 from physicians and astronomers. On the subject of astronomy 
 Doeff was more puzzled than even Thunberg had been, for, since 
 Thunberg's time, the Japanese would seem to have made consider- 
 able advances in that science. They had a translation of La Lande's 
 astronomy," and the chief astronomer, Takaro Sampei (to whom, 
 Doeff, at his special request for a name, gave that of Globius, and who 
 proved, on subsequent occasions, a good friend of the Dutch), could 
 calculate eclipses with much precision. To a grandson of one of 
 Thunberg's medical friends, who was also a physician, Doeff gave 
 
 extinguish a fire is stated to. be considered a glorious achievement But, 
 though fire is almost the only element the Japanese soldiers have to contend 
 with, thej do not seem to be very expert at subduing it. 
 
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. 453 
 
 the name of Johannis Botanicus. The honor of a Dutch name, ex- 
 ceedingly coveted by the Japanese, was solicited even by the prince 
 of Satzuma and his secretary. Being attacked with colic on his re- 
 turn from Jedo, Doeff submitted to the Japanese remedy of .acu- 
 puncture ; but he does not give any high idea of its efficacy. 
 
 Two accounts current of the trade of Japan for the years 1804 
 and 1806, published by Raffles, will serve to show its condition at 
 this time. The articles sent to Japan were sugar, spices, woollens, 
 cottons, tin, lead, quicksilver, sapan-wood, saffron, liquorice, ele- 
 phant's-teeth, catechu, and ducatoons, sugar forming about half the 
 cargo in value. The prime cost at Batavia was, in 1804, 211,896, 
 in 1806, 161,008 rix dollars, to which were to be added freight 
 and charges at Batavia, amounting in 1804 to 150,000, in 1806 to 
 106,244 rix dollars, making the whole cost in 1804, 361,807, in 
 1806, 266,252 rix dollars. The sales at Desima amounted in 
 1804 to 160,378, in 1806 to 108,797 rix dollars; but this in- 
 cluded, in 1804, 3,333 rix dollars from old goods, and, in 1806, 
 5,428 rix dollars borrowed of the Japanese to complete the cargo. 
 From these amounts were to be deducted the expenses of the estab- 
 lishment at Desima, and loss in weight on the sugar, viz., in 1804, 
 67,952,* and in 1806, 39,625 rix dollars, leaving to be employed 
 in the purchase of copper and camphor, in 1804, 92,426, in 1806, 
 69,172 rix dollars, to which were added 13,125 rix dollars from the 
 sale of old goods. The copper brought back by the ship of 1804 
 having been coined at Batavia, the entire profit of the voyage 
 amounted to 507,147 rix dollars, but the larger part of this profit 
 belonged, in fact, to the mint, the copper being coined at a rate 
 above its intrinsic value. In 1808, the copper being sold, the 
 balance in favor of the voyage was but 175,505 rix dollars, deduct- 
 ing the amount borrowed in Japan. It was only the low rate at 
 which copper was furnished by the Japanese government that en- 
 abled these voyages to pay. 
 
 In 1807, the Eclipse, of Boston, chartered at Canton by the 
 Russian American Company, for Kamtchatka and the north-west 
 coast of America, entered the bay of Nagasaki under !Russia» 
 
 • The expenses of the visit to Jedo, in 1804, were sixteen thousand six 
 hundred and sixt: -six rix dollars. 
 
454 JAPAN. A. 'P.. 1792—1817. 
 
 colors,* and was towed to the anchorage by an immense number of 
 boats. A Dutchman came on board, and advised them to haul 
 down their colors, as the Japanese were much displeased with 
 Russia. The Japanese' declined to trade, and asked what the ship 
 wanted. Being told water and fresh provisions, they sent on board 
 a plentiful supply of fish, hogs, vegetables, and tubs of water, for 
 which they would take no pay. Finding that no trade was to be 
 had, on the third day the captain lifted his anchors, and was towed 
 to sea by near a hundred boats. 
 
 In October, 1808, about the time that the annual Dutch vessel 
 was expected, a ship appeared off Nagasaki, under Dutch colors, 
 and, without any suspicion, two Dutchmen of the factory, followed 
 by the usual Japanese officers in another boat, proceeded to board 
 her. The Dutchmen were met by a boat from the vessel, and were 
 requested in Dutch to come into it. Upon their proposal to wait 
 for the Japanese boat, the strangers boarded them with drawn cut- 
 lasses, and forced them on board the ship, which proved to be the 
 English frigate Phaeton, Captain Pellew. The Japanese rowed back 
 with the news of what had happened, by which Nagasaki and all 
 its officers were thrown into a state of the greatest agitation. 
 
 While the governor of Nagasaki was exchanging messages with 
 director Doeff, as to what could be the meaning of this occurrence, 
 Captain Pellew, who was in search of the annual Dutch ship, stood 
 directly into the harbor, without a pilot. The director, fearing to 
 be himself taken, fled, with the other Dutchmen, to the govern- 
 or's house. " In the town," he says, " everything was in frightful 
 embarrassment and confusion. The governor was in a state of in- 
 describable wrath, which fell, in the first instance, upon the Japan- 
 ese officers, for having returned without the Dutchmen, or infor- 
 mation as to what nation the ship belonged to. Before I could 
 ask him a question, he said to me, with fury in his face, ' Be 
 quiet, director ; I shall take care that your people are restored.' 
 But the governor soon learned, to his consternation, that at the 
 harbor guard-house, where a thousand men ought to have been 
 
 * See " A Voyage Round the World," by Archibald Campbell, a Scotch- 
 man, who served as a common sailoi on board this ship. Doeff also mentions 
 her arrival. 
 
THE FRIGATE PHAETON. • 455 
 
 stationed, there were only sixty or seventy, and these uncom- 
 manded." 
 
 After a while came a letter from one of the detained Dutchmen, 
 in these words : " A ship is arrived from Bengal. The captain's 
 name is Pellew ; he asks for water and provisions." The governor 
 was little disposed to yield to this demand, and, about midnight, 
 his secretary waited on Doeff to inform him that he was going to 
 rescue the prisoners. Being questioned as to the manner how, he 
 replied, "Your countrymen have been seized by treachery; I shall, 
 therefore, go alone, obtain admission on board by every demonstra- 
 tion of friendship, seek an interview with the captain, and, on his 
 refusal to deliver his prisoners, stab him first, and then myself." 
 It cost Doeff a good deal of trouble to dissuade the secretary and 
 the governor from this wild scheme. The plan finally adopted was 
 to manage to detain the ship till vessels and men could be collected 
 to attack her. 
 
 The next afternoon one of the detained Dutchmen brought on 
 shore the following epistle from the English captain : " I have 
 ordered my own boat to set Goseman on shore, to procure me pro- 
 visions and water ; if he does not return with such before evening, 
 I will sail in to-morrow early, and burn the Japanese and Chinese 
 vessels in the harbor." The provisions and water were furnished, 
 though the Japanese were very unwilling to have Goseman return 
 on board. This done, the two Dutchmen were dismissed. 
 
 The governor, however, was still intent upon calling the foreign 
 ship to account. One scheme was to prevent her departure by 
 sinking vessels, laden with stones, in the channel. The prince of 
 Omura proposed to burn her, by means of boats, filled with reeds 
 and straw, offering himself to lead ; but while these schemes were 
 under discussion, the frigate weighed and sailed out of the harbor. 
 The affair, however, had a tragical ending. Within half an hour 
 after her departure, the governor, to save himself from impending 
 disgrace, cut himself open, as did several officers of the harbor- 
 guard. The prince of Fizen, though resident at Jedo at the time, 
 was imprisoned a hundred days, for the negligence of his servants 
 in the maintenance of the guard, and he was also required to pay 
 an annual pension to the son of the self-executed governor, whom 
 
456 • JAPAN. — A. D. 1792—1817. 
 
 Doeff, on again visiting Jedo in 1810, found to be in high favor at 
 court. 
 
 Up to 1809* the ships from Batavia had arrived regularly; but 
 from that time till 1813 neither goods nor news reached the lonely 
 Dutchmen at Desima. The first and second failure they bore with 
 some resignation, looking confidently forward to the next year ; 
 " but, alas ! " says our by this time very thirsty, and somewhat 
 ragged, director, " it passed away without relief or intelligence, 
 either from Europe or Batavia ! All our provision from Java was 
 by this time consumed. Butter we had not seen since the supply 
 of 1807, for the ship Groede Frouw" [good wife, but not good house- 
 wife] " had brought us none in 1809. To the honor of the Jap- 
 anese, I must acknowledge that they did everything in their power 
 to supply our special wants. . . . The inspector, Sige Denozen, 
 among others, gave himself much trouble to distil gin for us, for 
 which purpose I supplied him with a still-kettle and a tin worm, 
 which I chanced to possess. He had tolerable success, but could 
 not remove the resinous flavor of the juniper. The corn spirit (whis- 
 key), which he managed to distil, was excellent. As we had also 
 been without wine since the supply of 1807, with the exception of 
 a small quantity brought by the Groede Frouw, he likewise endeav- 
 ored to press it for us from the wild grapes of the country, but 
 with less success. He obtained, indeed, a red and fermented 
 liquor, but it was not wine. I myself endeavored to make beer ; 
 and, with the help of the domestic dictionaries of Chaud and Bays, 
 I got so far as to produce a whitish liquor, with something of the 
 flavor of the white beer of Haerlem, but which would not keep 
 above four days, as I could not make it work sufficiently, and had 
 no bitter with which to flavor it. Our great deficiency was in the 
 articles of shoes and winter clothing. We procured Japanese slip- 
 pers of straw, and covered the instep with undressed leather, and 
 thus draggled along the street. Long breeches we manufactured 
 
 * The ships of 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802 and 1803, had been Americans. The 
 renewal of the war in Europe having again driven the Dutch flag from the 
 ocean, the ships of 1806 had been an American and a Bremen er ; and those 
 of 1807 an American and a Dane ; one of the ships of 1809 was also an Amer- 
 ican, the Rebecca. 
 
ENGLISH ATTEMPT ON DESIMA. 457 
 
 from an old carpet which I had by me. Thus we provided for our 
 wants as well as we could. There was no distinction among us. 
 Every one who had saved anything, threw it into the common stock, 
 and we thus lived under a literal community of goods." 
 
 Great was the delight of our disconsolate director, when, in the 
 spring of 1813, two vessels appeared in the offing of Nagasaki, dis- 
 playing the Dutch flag, and making the private signals agreed upon 
 in 1809. A letter was brought on shore, announcing the arrival 
 from Batavia of Heer Waardena&r, Doeff 's predecessor as director, 
 to act as warehouse master, of Heer Cassa, to succeed Doeff as 
 director, and of three assistants or clerks. A Japanese officer and 
 one of the Dutch clerks were sent on board. The Japanese speedily 
 returned, saying that he had recognized Waardenaar, who had de- 
 clined, however, to deliver his papers except to Doeff personally, and 
 that all the officers spoke English, whence he concluded that the 
 ships must be chartered Americans. Doeff went on board, and was 
 received by Waardenaar with such evident embarrassment, that Doeff 
 declined to open the package of papers which he presented, except 
 at Desima, whither he was accompanied by Waardenaar. This 
 package being opened was found to contain a paper signed " Raffles, 
 Lieutenant-governor of Java and its Dependencies," appointing 
 Waardenaar and a Dr. Ainslie commissioners in Japan. In reply 
 to his question, "Who is Raffles?" Doeff learned that Holland had 
 been annexed to France,, and Java occupied by the English. But 
 the annexation of Holland to France, Doeff patriotically refused to 
 believe, and, in spite of all the efforts of Waardenaar to shake his 
 resolution, he declined obedience to an order coming from a colony 
 in hostile occupation. 
 
 His mind thu 4 ! made up, Doeff called in the Japanese interpreters, 
 and communicated to them the true state of the case. Alarmed for 
 their own safety, they made to Waardenaar frightful representa- 
 tions of the probable massacre of the crews and burning of the ves- 
 sels,- should this secret go any further, — especially considering the 
 hostile feelings towards the English, excited by the proceedings of 
 the Phaeton in 1808 ; and finally the commissioners were persuaded 
 to enter into an arrangement by which Doeff was to remain as direc 
 tor, and was to proceed to dispose of the cargoes as usual, first pay 
 ing out 'f the proceeds the debt which, since 1807, the factory had 
 39 
 
4:58 JAPAN. — A. D. 1792-1817. 
 
 been obliged to contract for its sustenance. Ainslie was also to 
 remain as factory physician, but passing as an American.* 
 
 The cost of the cargoes, as given by Raffles, with freight and 
 charges, amounted to two hundred and seventy-three thousand one 
 hundred and fifty Spanish dollars. Out of the proceeds in Japan 
 had to be paid forty-eight thousand six hundred and forty-eight 
 dollars, debts of the factory ; and twenty-five thousand dollars for 
 copper to make up the cargo, bought of Doeff at a higher rate than 
 was paid the Japanese. There were left at the factory four thou- 
 sand six hundred and eighty-eight dollars in cash, and fifteen thou- 
 sand dollars in woollens, and advances were made to persons on 
 board, to be repaid in Batavia, to the amount of three thousand six 
 hundred and seventy-eight dollars ; thus swelling the whole expenses 
 to three hundred and seventy thousand one hundred and sixty-four 
 dollars ; whereas the copper and camphor of the return cargo, pro- 
 '" duced only three hundred and forty-two thousand one hundred m and 
 twenty-six dollars, thus leaving an outgo on the voyage of twenty- 
 eight- thousand and thirty-eight dollars, which the credits in Japan 
 and Batavia were hardly sufficient to balance. These ships carried 
 out an elephant as a present to the emperor ; but, though it excited 
 great curiosity, the Japanese declined to receive it, alleging the dif- 
 ficulty of transporting it to Jedo. 
 
 In 1814, a single ship was sent from Batavia with Heer Cassa 
 again on board. He brought tidings of the insurrection in Europe 
 against France, and relied upon the probable speedy restoration of 
 Java, as an argument for inducing Doeff to submit temporarily to 
 the English, — an object which Sir Stamford Raffles had very much 
 at heart. When Doeff refused, Cassa resorted to intrigue. He 
 gained over two of the interpreters, through whom* he endeavored 
 to induce at Jedo a refusal to allow Doeff (whose term of office had 
 already been* so unusually protracted) to remain any longer as 
 
 : '- ; This is Doeff 's account, but, according to Golownin, at that time a pris- 
 oner in the north of Japan (see next chapter) , and who learnt from the Jap- 
 anese the arrival of the two vessels above mentioned, he communicated to the 
 Japanese the fact of the capture of Batavia by the English ; which fact, it 
 was afterwards reported to him, the Dutch had confessed. Raffles also, in 
 his memoirs, in speaking of Ainslie and his good treatment by the Japanese, 
 tlearly implies that he was known a be English. 
 
DUTCH-JAPANESE CHILDREN. 459 
 
 director. Doeff, however, got wind of this intrigue, frightened the 
 two interpreters by threatening to tell the whole story to the gov* 
 ernor of Nagasaki, and finally carried the day. He paid, however, 
 rather dearly for his obstinacy, as Raffles sent no more ships, and 
 director Doeff was obliged to pass three years more without either 
 goods or news, cooped up and kept on short allowance in his little 
 island, with the satisfaction, however, that there, if nowhere else in 
 the world, the flag of Holland still continued to wave. 
 
 The Japanese government, obliged to advance the means for the 
 support of the factory, did not leave the director entirely idle. He 
 was set to work, with the aid of ten Japanese interpreters, in com- 
 piling a Japanese and Dutch dictionary, for the use of the Japanese 
 men of science and the imperial interpreters. A copy of this work 
 was deposited in the imperial library at Jedo ; another, made by 
 Doeff for his own use, was lost, with all his other papers and effects, 
 on his return to Europe. The original rough draft of the work 
 was found afterwards, however, at Desima, by Herr Fisscher, and 
 having made a transcript, though less perfect than the original, he 
 brought it home in 1829, and deposited it in the royal museum at 
 Amsterdam.* 
 
 Thunberg, as we have seen, could hear nothing of semi-Dutch 
 children born in Japan. There were such, however, in Doeff's 
 time ; and it appears, from an incidental remark of his, that although 
 no birth was allowed to take place at Desima, yet that the Japanese 
 female inmates of the factory were permitted to nurse their infants 
 in the houses of their Dutch fathers. At a very early age, how- 
 ever, these children were taken away to be educated as pure Jap- 
 anese, being allowed to visit their fathers only at certain specified 
 intervals. The fathers, however, were expected to provide for them, 
 and to obtain for them, by purchase, some government office. 
 
 * Mr. Medhurst, English missionary at Batavia, who has published an 
 English and Japanese vocabulary, enumerates, in a letter written in 1827, 
 as among his helps to the knowledge of the language, besides five different 
 Japanese and Chinese diction iries, a Dutch, Japanese and Chinese one, in 
 two thick 8vo volumes ; also a corresponding one in Japanese, Chinese and 
 Dutch. These were printed in Japan, and were, perhaps, fruits of Doett'8 
 labors. 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 JOLDWNIN'S CAPTURE AND IMPRISONMENT. CONVEYANCE TO HAKODADE. — 
 
 RECEPTION AND IMPRISONMENT. INTERPRETERS. — INTERVIEWS WITH THB 
 
 GOVERNOR. REMOVAL TO MATSMAI. A PUPIL IN RUSSIAN. A JAPANESE 
 
 ASTRONOMER. — ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE. TREATMENT AFTERWARDS. 
 
 SAVANS FROM JEDO. JAPANESE SCIENCE. EUROPEAN NEWS. — A JAP- 
 ANESE FREE-THINKER. SOLDIERS. THEIR AMUSEMENTS. THOUGHTS ON 
 
 A WEDDING. DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. NEW TEAR. RETURN OF THB 
 
 DIANA. REPRISALS. A JAPANESE MERCHANT AND HIS FEMALE FRIEND. 
 
 SECOND RETURN OF THE DIANA. THIRD RETURN OF THE DIANA. 
 
 INTERVIEW ON SHORE. SURRENDER OF THE PRISONERS. JAPANESE 
 
 NOTIFICATION. — THE MERCHANT AT HOME. THE .MERCANTILE CLASS IN 
 
 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811—1813. 
 
 While, by the first interruption of the communication with Bata- 
 via, Doeff and his companions were secluded at Desima, a number 
 of Europeans were held in a still stricter imprisonment at the 
 northern extremity of Japan. 
 
 Captain Grolownin, an educated and intelligent Russian nava 1 
 officer, had been commissioned in 1811, as commander of the sloop 
 of war Diana, to survey the southern Kurile Islands, in which 
 group the Russians include both Sagaleen and Jeso, which they 
 reckon as the twenty-first and twenty-second Kuriles. At the 
 southern extremity of Etorpoo, the nineteenth Kurile, some Jap- 
 anese were first met with (July 13). Soon after, Golownin, with 
 two officers, four men and a Kurile interpreter, having landed at a 
 bay on the southern end of Kunashir, the twentieth Kurile, where 
 the Japanese had a settlement and a garris«n, they were invited 
 into the fort, and made prisoners. Thence they were taken, partly 
 by water and partly by land, to Hakodade, already mentioned as a 
 Japanese town at the southern extremity of Jeso. This journey 
 occupied four weeks, in which, by Golownin's calculation, the} 
 
EAST COAST OF JESO. 46i 
 
 travelled between six and seven hundred miles. The Japanese 
 stated it at two hundred and fifty-five of their leagues. The route 
 followed was along the east coast of the island. Every two miles 
 or so there was a populous village, from all of which extensive fish- 
 eries were carried on, evidently the great business of the inhabit- 
 ants. The fish were caught in great nets, hundreds at once. The 
 best were of the salmon species, but every kind of marine animal 
 was eaten. The gathering of seaweeds for food (of the kind called 
 by the Russians sea-cabbage*) also constituted a considerable 
 branch of industry. In the northern villages the inhabitants were 
 principally native Kuriles, with a few Japanese officers. "Within a 
 hundred and twenty or thirty miles of Ha»kodade the villages were 
 inhabited entirely by Japanese, and were much larger and hand- 
 somer than those further north, having gardens and orchards, and 
 distinguished by their scrupulous, neatness ; but even the Kurile 
 inhabitants of Jeso were far superior in civilization and comforts to 
 those of the more northern islands belonging to Russia. 
 
 When first seized by the Japanese, the Russians were bound with 
 cords, some about the thickness of a finger, and others still smaller. 
 They were all tied exactly alike (according to the prescribed method 
 for binding those arrested on criminal charges), the cords for each 
 having the same number of knots and nooses, and all at equal dis- 
 tances. There were loops round their breasts and necks ; their 
 elbows were drawn almost into contact behind their backs, and 
 their hands were firmly bound together. From these fastenings 
 proceeded a long cord, the end of which was held by a Japanese, 
 who, on the slightest attempt to escape, had only to pull it to make 
 the elbows come in contact with great pain,, and so to tighten the 
 noose about the neck as almost to produce, strangulation. Their 
 legs were also tied together above the ankles and above the knees. 
 Thus tied, they were conveyed all the way to Hakodade, having 
 the choice, for the land part of the route, either to be carried in a 
 rude sort of palanquin formed of planks, on which they were obliged 
 to lie flat, or to walk, which they generally preferred as less irksome, 
 
 * The English translator of Golownin's narrative mentions a species of 
 seaweed collected for eating, on the northern coast of Scotland and Ireland, 
 and there called dhulish, or when boiled, sloak, and which he says answers 
 exactly to Thunberg's description of the edible fucus of the fapanese. 
 % 39* 
 
462 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811—1813. 
 
 and for which purpose the cords about the ankles were removed, and 
 those above the knees loosened. The cords were drawn so tight aa 
 to be very painful, and even after a while to cut into the flesh ; yet, 
 though in all other respects the Japanese seemed inclined to consult 
 the comfort of the prisoners, they would not for the first six or sever 
 days, be induced to loosen them, of which the chief reason turned 
 out to be their apprehension lest the prisoners might commit suicide, 
 — that being the Japanese resource under such extremities. 
 
 Their escort consisted of from one hundred and fifty to two hun- 
 dred men. Two Japanese guides from the neighboring villages, 
 changed at each new district, led the way, bearing handsomely- 
 carved staves. Then came three soldiers, then Captain Golownin 
 with a soldier on one side, and on the other an attendant with a 
 twig to drive off the gnats, which were troublesome, and against 
 which his bound hands prevented him from defending himself 
 Behind came an officer holding the ends of the ropes by which the 
 prisoner was bound, then a party of Kuriles, bearing his kango, 
 followed by another relief party. The other captives followed, one 
 by one, escorted in the same manner. Finally came three soldiers, 
 and a number of Japanese and Kurile servants carrying provisions 
 and baggage. Each of the escort had a wooden tablet, suspended 
 from his girdle, on which were inscribed his duties and which pris- 
 oner he was stationed with ; and the commanding officer had a cor- 
 responding list of the whole. The prisoners had the same fare with 
 the escort, — three meals a day, generally of rice boiled to a thick 
 gruel, two pieces of pickled radish* for seasoning, soup made of 
 radishes or various wild roots and herbs, a kind of macaroni, and a 
 piece of broiled or boiled fish. Sometimes they had stewed mush- 
 rooms, and each a hard-boiled egg. Their general drink was very 
 indifferent tea, without sugar, and sometimes saki. Their conduc- 
 tors frequently stopped at the villages to rest, or to drink tea and 
 smoke tobacco, and they also rested for an hour after dinner. They 
 
 *•" The Japanese radish," says Golownin, "is in form and taste very 
 different from ours. It is thin and extremely long. The taste is not very 
 acrid, but sweetish, almost like our turnips. Whole fields are covered with 
 it. A great part ,of the crop is salted, the remainder is buried in the grotjid 
 for winter, and boiled in soup. Not even the radish-leaves remain unused 
 they are boiled in soup or salted and eaten as salad. They manure the radish 
 fields with night-soil ; this we ourselves saw at Matsmai." _ 
 
GOLOWNIN AT HAKODADE. 463 
 
 halted for the night an hour or two before sunset, usually in a village 
 with a small garrison. They were always conducted first to the 
 front of the house of the officer in command, and were seated on 
 benches covered with mats, when the officer came out to inspect 
 them. They were then taken to a neat house (which generally, 
 when they first entered, was hung round with striped cotton cloth), 
 and were placed together in one apartment, the ends of their ropes 
 being fastened to iron hooks in the walls. Their boots and stock- 
 ings were pulled off, and their feet bathed in warm water with salt 
 in it. For bedding they had the Japanese mattresses — quilts with 
 a thick wadding — folded double. 
 
 After the first six or seven days their bonds were loosened, and 
 they got on more comfortably. The Japanese took the greatest 
 care of their health, not allowing them to wet their feet, carrying 
 them across the shallowest streams, and furnishing them with 
 quilted Japanese gowns as a protection against the rain. 
 
 At Hakodade they were received by a great crowd, among 
 which were several persons with silk dresses mounted on horses 
 with rich caparisons. " Both sides of the road," says Grolownin, 
 " were crowded with spectators, yet every one behaved with the 
 utmost decorum. I particularly marked their countenances, and 
 never once observed a malicious look, or any sign of hatred tow- 
 ards us, and none showed the least disposition to insult us by mock- 
 ery or derision." He had observed the same thing in the villages 
 through which they had passed, where the prisoners had received, 
 as they did afterwards, from numerous individuals, many touching 
 instances of commiseration and sympathy. 
 
 At Hakodade they were confined in a prison, a high wooden 
 enclosure, or fence, surrounded by an earthen wall somewhat lower, 
 (and on their first approach to it hung with striped cloth),* inside 
 of which was a long, barn-like building. Within this building were 
 a number of small apartments, scarcely six feet square, formed of 
 thick spars, and exactly like cages, in which the prisoners were 
 
 * The fort on the island where they were taken prisoners, when first seen 
 from the ship, was hung round with striped cloths, which concealed the 
 walls. These cloths had embrasures painted on them, but in so rough a 
 manner that the deception could be perceived at a considerable distance. 
 
464 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811—1813. 
 
 shut up, the passages and other spaces being occupied by the 
 guards.* Their food was much worse than on the journey (proba- 
 bly Japanese prison fare), boiled rice, soup of warm water and 
 grated radish, a handful of finely-chopped young onions with boiled 
 beans, and one or two pickled cucumbers or radishes. Instead of 
 the radish-soup, puddings of bean-meal and rancid fish-oil were 
 sometimes served. Very rarely they had half a fish, with soy. Their 
 drink was warm water, and occasionally bad tea. 
 
 Their only means of communicating with the Japanese had been, 
 at first, a Kurile, one of the prisoners, who knew a little Russian, 
 and probably about as much Japanese. At Hakodade another 
 interpreter presented himself; but he, a man of fifty, naturally 
 stupid, and knowing nothing of any European language, except a 
 little Russian, did not prove much better. 
 
 The second day they were conducted through the streets, by a 
 guard of soldiers (the prisoners each with a rope round his waist 
 held by a Japanese), to a fort or castle, which was surrounded 
 by palisades and an earthen wall. Within was a court-yard, in the 
 centre of which was a brass cannon on a badly-constructed carriage. 
 From this court-yard Golownin, and after him each of the others, 
 was conducted through a wide gate, which was immediately shut 
 behind them, into a large hall, of which half had a pavement of 
 small stones. The other half had a floor, or platform, raised three 
 feet from the ground, and covered- with curiously- wrought mats. 
 The hall was fifty or sixty feet long, of equal breadth, eighteen feet 
 high, and divided by movable screens, neatly painted, from other 
 adjoining rooms. There were two or three apertures for windows, 
 with paper instead of glass, admitting an obscure, gloomy light. 
 The governor sat on the floor, in the middle of the elevated platform, 
 with two secretaries behind him. On his left (the Japanese place 
 of honor) was the next in command ; on his right, another officer , 
 on each side of these, other officers of inferior rank. They all sat, 
 in the Japanese fashion, with their legs folded under them, two 
 paces apart, clothed in black dresses, their short swords in their 
 girdles, and their longer ones lying at their left. The new inter- 
 
 * The description of this prison corresponds very well to Kampfer's de- 
 scription of the one at Nagasaki. 
 
OFFICIAL EXAMINATIONS. 465 
 
 preter <*at on the edge of the raised floor, and an inferior officer at 
 each of the corners of it. On the walls hung irons for securing 
 prisoners, ropes, and various instruments of punishment. The Rus- 
 sian prisoners stood in front of the raised floor, the officers in a 
 line, the sailors behind. The Kurile was seated on the stones. They 
 underwent a very rigorous and particular examination, all their 
 answers being written down. The questions related to their birth- 
 places ; their families (and when it appeared that they came from 
 different towns, how it happened that they served on board the same 
 ship) ; the burden and force of their vessel ; their own rank ; their 
 object ; their route since leaving St. Petersburg, which they were 
 required to trace on a chart, &c, &c. 
 
 Among other things, the governor remarked that Laxman (who 
 had visited Japan in 1792) wore a long tail, and covered his hair 
 with flour ; whereas the prisoners (powder and queues having gone 
 out of fashion in the interval) had their hair cut short and unpow- 
 dered ; and he asked if some change of religion had not taken place 
 in Russia. When told that in Russia there was no connection 
 between religion and the way of wearing the hair, the Japanese 
 laughed, but expressed great surprise that there should not be some 
 express law on the subject. 
 
 Eighteen days after, they had a second examination, on which 
 occasion a letter, of which the Japanese wanted an interpretation, 
 was delivered to them. It had been sent on shore from their 
 ship along with their baggage, expressing a determination to return 
 to Okhotsk for reinforcements, and never to quit the coast of Japan 
 till the prisoners were rescued. This reexamination was continued 
 for two days, in which many inquiries were made about Chwostoff, 
 and the papers he had left behind him, one of which was produced. 
 The Russian prisoners tried to make out that the proceedings of 
 Chwostoff were without authority from the Russian government ; 
 but the Japanese evidently did not believe them. 
 
 After one or two more examinations they were removed to Mats- 
 mai, guarded, as before, by soldiers, but furnished with horses, as 
 well as litters or kangos, on or in which the prisoners were suffered 
 to ride, the Japanese, however, retaining the end of a rope by which 
 'hey were still bound. Near Matsmai, they were shown a bat- 
 teij on a high hill, intended to command the harbor, but ill adapted 
 
466 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811—1813. 
 
 for that purpose. It had three or four small brass pieces on car- 
 riages, and an eighteen or a twenty-four pounder, apparently cast in 
 Europe, mounted on cross-beams. Matsmai lies on a large, open 
 bay, with four fathoms of water at low tide ; and, according to the 
 Japanese, is about two hundred of their leagues (five hundred miles) 
 from Jedo, the land journey thither, after crossing the strait, 
 being made in twenty-three days. 
 
 A great crowd collected to see them enter the town, ropes being 
 stretched to keep the passage clear. Confined in a prison much 
 like the one at Hakodade, and close under the ramparts of the cas- 
 tle, they underwent many more examinations before the bugio or gov- 
 ernor of Matsmai. The inquisitiveness of their questioners, which 
 seemed to be without limit, proved a great torment to the Russians, 
 and sometimes put them into a passion ; but the Japanese were always 
 cool and polite. They were supplied with much better food than at 
 Hakodade, fresh and salt fish, boiled or fried in poppy-seed oil, with 
 soy for sauce. They also had, after the winter set in, flesh of sea- 
 dogs, hares and bears, and attempts were even made to cook for 
 them after the Russian fashion. For drink they had tea * and 
 warm saki. They were furnished with warm clothing, both their 
 own which had been sent on shore for them, and Japanese gowns, 
 for which a tailor was sent to measure them ; and, when the 
 weather grew colder, they Jaad hearths, after the Japanese fashion, 
 made in the prison, at a little distance from each cage, on which 
 charcoal fires were kept burning. A physician visited them daily 
 to look after their health, and if anything serious appeared he 
 brought a consulting physician with him. 
 
 After a time their accommodations were much improved. In- 
 stead of confinement in separate cages, they had a large room cov- 
 ered with mats. A young man, named Teske, was now brought to 
 them, whom they were requested to instruct in the Russian lan- 
 guage. He proved a very apt scholar, made rapid progress, soon 
 
 .* The tea in common use, Golownin, like other travellers in Japan, ob- 
 served to be of a very inferior quality. Green tea was used as a luxury on 
 occasions of ceremony. Sugar was rare and costly, being brought from Ba- 
 tavia by the Dutch, and packed for retail in^mall baskets. Golownin saw 
 also a very inferior kind, which he concluded to be of domestic manufac- 
 ture. 
 
AN ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE. 467 
 
 learned to speak, read and write Russian, and became very much 
 attached to his instructors. They in their turn learned something 
 of Japanese ; but it was forbidden to teach them the written charac- 
 ters. Teske was exceedingly anxious to collect statistical informa- 
 tion concerning Russia. A Japanese man of science, who had an 
 English sextant, a compass, a case of mathematical instruments, 
 &c, also paid them a visit. He knew how to find the latitude by 
 observing the sun's altitude at noon, using in his calculations some 
 tables obtained, as he said, from a Dutch book ; and he was exceed- 
 ingly anxious to gain additional information, especially how to find 
 the longitude by lunar observations ; but this, for want of the 
 necessary tables, the Russians, much to his disgust, were unable to 
 teach him. 
 
 The first snow fell about the middle of October, but soon melted. 
 The winter set in about the middle of November, with deep snows, 
 which lasted till April. 
 
 As the spring opened they were permitted to take walks and 
 excursions in the vicinity of the town, and were presently removed 
 to a house, composed of three apartments, separated by screens ; 
 but were still closely watched and guarded. Tired of this confine- 
 ment, of which they could see no end, the Russians succeeded in 
 getting out of their prison, and in gaining the mountains back of 
 the town, whence they descended to the coast, hoping to find some 
 means of escape by sea. But, after seven days' wanderings and 
 many sufferings, they were retaken. The island was found to be 
 composed of steep hills, separated by precipitous ravines, with 
 hardly any plain land, except near the coast. The interior was 
 uninhabited, except by wood-cutters employed in getting timber 
 and preparing charc<aal. 
 
 When retaken they were confined in the common jail of the town, 
 but their accommodations were not worse than they had been in the 
 other two prisons. No ill will was shown towards them by any 
 of the officials, not even by those whose lives their flight had endan- 
 gered. The soldier who was held the most responsible for their 
 escape, and who had been degraded in consequence to the rank of a 
 common servant, showed even more alacrity than before in their 
 behalf. In a month or two they were removed back to their 
 former prison, where they were visited the next spring (1813) by 
 
468 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811—1813. 
 
 an interpreter of the Dutch language, who had come from Jecta, 
 and by a learned man from the same capital, who was indeed no 
 other than DoefPs astronomer, Globius, but known to the Russians 
 as Addati-Sonnai, both of whom desired to learn the Russian lan- 
 guage. The interpreter, a young man of twenty-seven, and already 
 acquainted with the rules of European grammar, made rapid prog- 
 ress, and soon applied himself to translate a treatise on vaccina- 
 tion, which one of the returned Japanese had brought from Russia. 
 The astronomer busied himself in translating a Russian school 
 treatise on arithmetic, carried to Japan by one of the Japanese 
 conveyed home by Laxman in 1792. It was evident that he had 
 considerable mathematical learning. The Japanese astronomers 
 had made decided progress since the time of Thunberg. Globius 
 understood the Copernican system, was acquainted with the orbit and 
 satellites of Uranus; knew the nature and doctrine of signs and 
 tangents, and was familiar with the difference between the old and 
 new styles. He assured Golownin that the Japanese could calculate 
 eclipses with much exactness, and he studied with great attention 
 a treatise on physics, which, with other books, had been sent on 
 shore in Golownin's chest. 
 
 Nor were the Japanese without knowledge of the revolutions going 
 on in Europe. The Russians were told the news of the taking of 
 Moscow, brought to Nagasaki by the two vessels from Batavia ; but 
 with patriotism equal to that shown by Doeff, in relation to . the 
 annexation of Holland to France, they refused to believe it. The 
 Japanese gave them a minute description of these two vessels, and 
 also of the elephant which they brought, his length, height, thick- 
 ness, food, &c. A native of Sumatra, the keeper of the elephant, 
 was described with equal minuteness. m 
 
 Teske, whom Golownin had taught Russian, was found to be quite 
 a free-thinker, both in politics and religion ; but, in general, the 
 Japanese seemed very superstitious, of which, presently, we shall 
 see some instances. 
 
 The soldiers Golownin observed to be of two classes, those of the 
 local administration, and others whom he calls imperial soldiers, 
 and who appear, by his description, to be precisely the same 
 with those whom Kampfer describes under the name of Dosiu, or 
 Dosen, as attached to the service of the governor of Nagasaki, and 
 
AMUSEMENTS. 469 
 
 indeed, this same name, in a modified form, is given to them by 
 Golownjn. They took precedence of the ethers, and were so hand- 
 somely clothed and equipped as to be mistaken at first for officers. 
 The profession of arms, like most others in Japan, is hereditary.. 
 The arms of the soldiers, besides the two swords, were matchlocks, 
 — which, when they fired, they placed, not against the shoulder, but 
 the right cheek, — bows and arrows, and long pikes, heavy and in- 
 convenient. 
 
 They could all read, and spent much time in reading aloud, 
 which they did much in the same droning, half-chanting tone in 
 which the psalms are read at funerals in Russia. Great surprise 
 was expressed that the Russian sailors were unable to read and 
 write ; and, also, that but one Russian book was found in the 
 officer's baggage, and that on much worse paper, and much worse 
 bound, than those they had in French and other languages. It 
 was shrewdly asked if the Russians did not know how to print 
 books ? 
 
 Playing at cards and draughts was a very common amusement. 
 The cards were at first known to the Japanese by their European 
 names, and were fifty-two in the pack. Owing, however, to the 
 pecuniary losses — for the Japanese were great gamesters — and 
 fatal disputes to which cards gave rise, they were strictly prohibited. 
 But this law was evaded by the invention of a pack of forty-eight 
 cards, much smaller than those of Europe. Their game at draughts 
 was extremely difficult and complicated. They made use of a large 
 board, and four hundred men, which they moved about in many 
 directions, and which were liable to be taken in various ways. The 
 Russian sailors played at draughts, in the European way, which 
 the Japanese soon learned to imitate, so that the game, and the 
 Russian terms employed in playing it, soon became familiar through- 
 out the city of Matsmai. 
 
 The following anecdote throws some light on Japanese domestic 
 relations : " Our interpreter, Kamaddshero [this was the first inter- 
 preter], visited us the day after the marriage of his daughter, and, 
 having mentioned the marriage, said that he had wept very much. 
 ' Why wept,' said we, ' since on such occasions it is usual only to 
 rejoice ? ' ' Certainly,' he answered, ' I should have rejoiced, were 
 I but convinced that the man will love my daughter and make her 
 40 
 
470 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811—1813. 
 
 happy ; but, as the contrary often happens in the married state, a 
 father who gives his daughter to a husband cannot be indifferent, 
 for fear of future misfortunes'' He spoke this with tears in his 
 eyes, and in a voice which affected us." 
 
 Of the value which the Japanese put upon female society the 
 following curious instance occurred. . The prisoners' meals were at 
 one time superintended by an old officer of sixty, who was very 
 civil, and frequently consoled them with assurances that they should 
 be sent home. One day he brought them three portraits of Japan- 
 ese ladies, richly dressed, which, after examining, they handed back ; 
 but the old man insisted they should keep them, and, when asked 
 why, he observed that, when time hung heavy on their hands, they 
 might console themselves by looking at them ! 
 
 For the first fortnight of the new year all business was sus 
 pended. Nothing was thought of except visiting and feasting. In 
 the latter half of the month the more industrious resumed their em- 
 ployments. All who can, procure new clothes on this occasion, and 
 the Japanese insisted upon furnishing their prisoners in the same 
 way. " Custom requires," says Grolownin, " that each person should 
 visit all his acquaintances in the place in which he resides, and send 
 letters of congratulation to those who- are at a distance. Our in- 
 terpreters and guards were accordingly employed, for some days 
 previous to the festival, in writing letters of that kind and visiting- 
 cards. On the latter the names of the person from whom the card 
 comes, and for whom it is intended, are written, and the opportu- 
 nity by which it is presented is also noted. Teske translated for 
 us one of his congratulatory letters, addressed to the officer at 
 Kunashir by whom we had been entrapped, and which was to the 
 following effect : " Last year you were happy, and I greatly desire 
 that that this new year you may enjoy good health, and experience 
 happiness and prosperity in every undertaking. I still respect you 
 as formerly, and request that you will not forget me. Teske." 
 
 It is evident, from Golownin's narrative, that the houses, furni- 
 ture and domestic arrangements, at Matsmai, notwithstanding the 
 coldness of the climate, differed in nothing from those in use in the 
 more southerly islands. The Japanese, Grolownin observed, were, 
 compared with the Russians, very small eaters. They were also much 
 more temperate in drinking, it being looked upon as disgraceful to 
 
CAPTAIN RIKORD. 47l 
 
 be drunk in 'the day-time, or at any time, extraordinary festivities 
 excepted. s 
 
 Late in the summer following the capture of Golownin and his 
 companions, the Diana, now under the command of Captain Rikord, 
 came back to Kunashir. Of the two Japanese seized by Chwostoff, 
 one had died. The other, who called himself Leonsaima, Rikord 
 had on board, along with six other Japanese, lately shipwrecked 
 on Kamtschatka, hoping to exchange these seven for the seven 
 Russians. On reaching the bay where Golownin had been taken, 
 he saw a new battery of fourteen guns. All the buildings were 
 covered with striped cloth, the boats were drawn up on the shore, 
 and not a person appeared. 
 
 Leonsaima, in his six years' captivity, had learned some Russian, 
 and ^e was employed to write a short letter from Captain Rikord 
 to the commander on shore, stating his having brought back the 
 seven Japanese, and requesting the restoration of his countrymen. 
 From , some circumstances, the good faith of Leonsaima was sus- 
 pected, and the contents of the letter written by him rather dis- 
 trusted ; still it was finally sent on shore by one of the Japanese, 
 upon whom the batteries fired as he landed, and who returned no 
 more. 
 
 Three days after, a second Japanese was sent, with a written 
 message in the Russian language ; but ' he came back, saying that 
 the governor had refused to receive it, and that he had been him- 
 self thrust out of the castle. As a last resource, Leonsaima — who 
 represented himself as a merchant, and a person of some conse- 
 quence, though, in fact, he had been only a fishing agent — was sent 
 on shore, with another Japanese, on his promise to return with, 
 such information as he could obtain. He did return, without the 
 other, and stated that the Russians were all dead. Sent on shore 
 to obtain in writing a confirmation of this verbal statement, he 
 came back no more. 
 
 Rikord now determined to seize any Japanese vessel that might 
 be entering or leaving the harbor. A large Japanese ship soon 
 appeared, from which, as the Russian boats approached her, several 
 of her crew, of sixty men, jumped into the water. Nine were 
 drowned, some escaped to the shore, and others were picked up by 
 the Russian boats. The captain, who was taken on board tha 
 
172 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811— 1813. 
 
 Diana, appeared, from his rich yellow dress, his swords, and othef 
 circumstances, to be a person of distinction. Being interrogated in 
 Japanese, of which Rikord had picked up a little from Leonsaima, 
 he answered, with great frankness, that his name was Tachatay- 
 Kachi,* that he was the owner of ten ships, and bound from Eetoo- 
 roop (the nineteenth Kurile) to Hakodade, with a cargo of dried 
 fish, but had been obliged by contrary winds to put into the bay of 
 Kunashir. 
 
 Being shown the letter written by Leonsiama, he exclaimed, 
 " Captain Moort and five Russians are now in the city of Mats- 
 oaai." This information was hardly credited, and Rikord finally 
 resolved to convey his captive to Kamtschatka, hoping, in the 
 course of the winter, to obtain through him some information re- 
 specting the fate of the Russians, and the views of the Japanese 
 government, especially as he seemed far superior to any of tho 
 Japanese with whom they had hitherto met, and, therefore, more 
 likely to understand the policy of those who ruled in Japan. 
 
 " I informed him," says Rikord, " that he must hold himself in 
 readiness to accompany me to Russia, and explained the circum- 
 stances which compelled me to make such an arrangement. He 
 understood me perfectly, and when I proceeded to state my belief 
 that Captain Grolownin, Mr. Moor, and the rest of the Russian 
 prisoners, had been put to death, he suddenly interrupted me, ex- 
 claiming, ' That is not true. Captain Moor and five Russians are 
 living in Matsmai, where they are well treated, and enjoy the 
 freedom of walking about the city, accompanied by two officers.' 
 When I intimated that we intended to take him with us, he replied, 
 with astonishing coolness, ' Well, I am ready ; ' and merely re- 
 quested that on our arrival in Russia he might continue to livo 
 with me. This I promised he should do, and likewise that I would 
 carry him back to Japan in the ensuing year. . He then seemed 
 perfectly reconciled to his unlooked-for destiny. 
 
 " The four Japanese, who still remained on board the ship, un- 
 
 * This is Rikord's orthography. In the representation of the Japanese 
 syllables given in the appendix it might probably be thus represented, 
 Tahate-Kahi. 
 
 t This was the name of one of Golownin's fellow-prisoners, who had madf 
 himself quite famous among; the Japanese by his skill as a draftsman. 
 
A JAPANESE MERCHANT. 47^ 
 
 derstcrd not a word of Russian, and were, besides, so afflicted with 
 the scurvy,* that they would, in all probability, have perished had 
 they wintered in Kamtschatka. I therefore thought it advisable 
 to set them at liberty, and, having furnished them with every neces- 
 sary, I ordered them to be put on shore, hoping that they would, 
 in gratitude, give a good account of the Russians to their country- 
 men.! In their stead, I determined to take four seamen from the 
 Japanese vessel, who might be useful in attending on Tachatay- 
 Kachi, to whom I left the choice of the individuals. He earnestly 
 entreated that none of the seamen might be taken, observing that 
 they were extremely stupid, and that he feared they would die of 
 grief, owing to the dread they entertained of the Russians. The 
 earnestness of his solicitations led me in some measure to doubt 
 that our comrades were really living in Matsmai, and I repeated, 
 in a decided manner, my determination to take four of the seamen. 
 He then begged that I would accompany him to his ship. When 
 he went on board, he assembled the whole of his crew in the cabin, 
 and, having seated himself on a long cushion, which was placed on 
 a fine mat, requested that I would take my place beside him. The 
 sailors all knelt down [seated themselves on their heels ?] before us, 
 and he delivered a long speech, in which he stated that it would be 
 necessary for some of them to accompany us to Russia. 
 
 " Here a very affecting scene was exhibited. A number of the 
 seamen .approached him, with their heads bent downwards, and, 
 with great eagerness, whispered something to him ; their counte- 
 nances were all bathed in tears ; even Tachatay-Kachi, who had 
 hitherto evinced calmness and resolution, seemed now to be deeply 
 distressed, and began to weep. I for some time hesitated to carry 
 
 * Golownin mentions the scurvy as a prevailing disease among the Japan- 
 ese, perhaps occasioned by their thin diet. 
 
 t These released Japanese were sent to Matsmai, and, after remaining 
 about a week, were forwarded to Jedo. The shipwrecked men did not give, 
 so Golownin was informed, a very favorable account of their entertainment 
 in Kamtschatka. Leonsairaa praised Irkutsk, but represented eastern Sibe- 
 ria and Okhotsk as a miserable country, where scarce anybody was to be seen 
 except beggars and government officers. He thought very meanly of tha 
 Kussians, a few individuals excepted. From their military spirit, even the 
 boys in the stveet playing soldier, he thought they must meditate conquest 
 probably that of Japan. 
 
 40* 
 
474 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811—1813. 
 
 my resolution into effect, and was only induced to adhere to it by 
 the consideration that I would hereafter have the opportunity of 
 interrogating each individual separately, and, probably, thereby 
 ascertaining whether or not our comrades were really alive in Mats- 
 mai. I had, however, in other respects, no reason to repent of this 
 determination, for the Japanese merchant, who was accustomed to 
 live in a style of Asiatic luxury, would have experienced serious 
 inconvenience on board our vessel without his Japanese attendants, 
 two of whom were always, by turns, near his person. 
 
 " Tachatay-Kachi, and the sailors he selected, soon behaved as 
 though our ship had been their own,, and we, on our side, employed 
 every means to convince them that we considered the Japanese, not 
 as a hostile, but as a friendly nation, with whom our good under- 
 standing was only accidentally interrupted. 
 
 " The same day we received on board, at my invitation, from 
 the captured vessel, a Japanese lady, who had been the inseparable 
 companion of Tachatay-Kachi on his voyage from Hakodade, no- 
 place of residence, to Eetooroop. She was extremely desirous ch 
 seeing our ship, and the strange people and polite enemies, as sh» 
 styled us, and to witness our friendly intercourse with her country 
 men. A Japanese lady was, also, to us no slight object of curiosity. 
 When she came on board, she appeared very timid and embarrassed. 
 I requested Tachatay-Kachi to conduct her into my cabin, and, as 
 she advanced, I took her by the other hand. On reaching the 
 cabin-door, she wished to take off her straw shoes ; but, as there 
 were neither mats nor carpets in my cabin, I explained to her, by 
 signs, that this singular mark of politeness might be dispensed with 
 among us. 
 
 " On entering the cabin, she placed both hands on her head, 
 with the palms outwards, and saluted us by bending her body very 
 low. I conducted her to a chair, and Kachi requested her to sit 
 down. Fortunately for this unexpected visitor, there was on board 
 our vessel a young and handsome woman, the wife of our surgeon's 
 mate. The Japanese lady seemed highly pleased on being intro- 
 duced to her, and they quickly formed an intimacy. Our country- 
 woman endeavored to entertain the foreigner with what the women 
 of all countries delight in — she showed her her trinkets. Our visitor 
 behaved with all the ease of a woman of fashion ; she examined 
 
47b 
 
 the ornaments with great curiosity, and expressed her admiration 
 by an agreeable smile. But the fair complexion of our country- 
 woman seemed most of all to attract her attention. She passed her 
 hands over the Russian woman's face, as though she suspectftd it 
 had been painted, and, with a smile, exclaimed, ' Yoe ! yoe ! ' which 
 signifies good. I observed that our visitor was somewhat vain of 
 her new ornaments, and I held a looking-glass before her, that she 
 might see how they became her. The Russian lady placed herself 
 immediately behind her, in order to show her the difference of their 
 complexions, when she immediately pushed the glass aside, and said, 
 ' Vare ! vare ! ' — not good. She might herself have been called 
 handsome ; her face was of the oval form, her features regular, and 
 her little mouth, when open, disclosed a set of shining black lack- 
 ered teeth. Her black eyebrows, which had the appearance of 
 having been pencilled, overarched a pair of sparkling dark eyes, 
 which were by no means deeply seated. Her hair was black, and 
 rolled up in the form of a turban, without any ornament, except a 
 few small tortoise-shell combs. She was about the middle size, and 
 elegantly formed. Her dress consisted of six wadded silk garments, 
 similar to our night-gowns, each fastened round the lower part of 
 the waist by a separate band, and drawn close together from the 
 girdle downwards. They were all of different colors, the outer one 
 black. Her articulation was slow, and her voice soft. Her coun- 
 tenance was expressive and interesting, and she was, altogether, 
 calculated to make a very agreeable impression. She could not be 
 older than eighteen. We entertained her with fine green tea and 
 sweetmeats, of which she ate and drank moderately. On her taking 
 leave, I made her some presents, with which she appeared to be 
 much pleased. I hinted to our countrywoman that she should 
 embrace her, and when the Japanese observed what was intended, 
 she ran into her arms, and kissed her with a smile." 
 
 The Japanese merchant, at Rikord's request, wrote a letter to 
 the commander at Kunashir, detailing the state of affairs. No 
 answer was returned, and when an attempt was made to land for 
 water, the boats were fired upon, as was the Diana herself, when- 
 ever she approached the shore ; but the aim was so bad as to excite 
 the derision of the Russians. 
 
 During the winter passed in Kamtschatka, the Japanese mar 
 
476 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811— 1813. 
 
 chant continued to gain in the good opinion of his captors, .whose 
 language he so far mastered as to be able to converse in it even on 
 abstract subjects. He seemed to interest himself much in arrang- 
 ing lie misunderstanding between the Russian and Japanese gov- 
 ernments, and expressed his wish, which he said was shared by 
 others of his class, to see a commercial intercourse opened between 
 the two nations ; and it was at his suggestion that Rikord sent to 
 the governor of Irkutsk for a disavowal of the hostile acts' of 
 Chwostoff. . 
 
 Kachi remained in good health and spirits till the middle of 
 winter, when the death of two of his Japanese attendants greatly 
 affected him. He became melancholy and peevish, asserted that he 
 had the scurvy, and told the surgeon he should certainly die ; but 
 his real disorder was home-sickness, aggravated by apprehensions 
 of being detained at Okhotsk, whither Rikord had intended to sail 
 before proceeding to Japan, in order to get the disavowal above 
 referred to. As Kachi's assistance seemed essential, Rikord, fear- 
 ing lest he might die, resolved to sail direct for Japan as soon as 
 the vessel could be cut from the ice, — a resolution by which Ka- 
 chi's spirits were greatly raised. 
 
 They arrived in Kunashir bay in June, 1813. The buildings 
 were, as formerly, concealed by striped cotton cloth, but no guns 
 were fired, and not a living being was to be seen. ( When the two 
 Japanese sailors were about to be sent on shore, Rikord, somewhat 
 excited at their master's declining to pledge himself for their return, 
 bade them say to the governor, that if he prevented them from re- 
 turning, or sent back no information, their master should be carried 
 to Okhotsk, whence some ships of war should immediately come to 
 demand the liberation of the Russians. 
 
 " At these words," says Rikord, " Takaytay-Kachi changed coun- 
 tenance, but said, with much calmness, ' Commander of the imperial 
 ship ' — he always addressed me thus on important occasions — 
 ' thou counsellest rashly. Thy orders to the governor of Kunashii 
 seem to contain much, but according to our laws they contain little. 
 In vain dost thou threaten to carry me to Okhotsk ; my men may 
 be detained on shore, but neither two, nor yet two thousand sailors 
 can answer for me Therefore I give thee previous notice that i* 
 will not be in thy power to take me to Okhotsk. But tell me 
 
KACHl'S RELEASE. 477 
 
 whether it be under these conditions only that my sailors are to be 
 sent on shore ? ' * Yes,' said I ; < as commander of a ship of war, 
 I cannot under these circumstances act otherwise.' 
 
 " ' Well,' replied he, ' allow me to give my sailors my last and 
 most urgent instructions, as to what they must communicate from 
 me to the governor of Kunashir.' He then rose up — for during 
 this conversation he sat, according to the Japanese custom, with his 
 legs under him — and addressed me very earnestly in the following 
 terms : ' You know enough of Japanese to understand all that I 
 may say in plain and easy words to my sailors. I would not wish 
 you to have any ground to suspect me of hatching base designs.' 
 He then sat down again, when his sailors approached him on their 
 knees, and hanging down their heads, listened with deep attention 
 to his words. He reminded them circumstantially of the day on 
 which they were carried on board the Diana, of the manner in 
 which they had been treated on board 'that ship and in Kamt- 
 schatka, of their having inhabited the same house with me, and 
 being carefully provided for, of the death of their two countrymen, 
 notwithstanding all the attention bestowed upon them by the Rus- 
 sian physician, and, finally, that the ship had hastily returned to 
 Japan on account of his own. health. All this he directed them 
 faithfully to relate, and concluded with the warmest commendations 
 of me, and earnest expressions of gratitude for the care that I had 
 taken of him by sea and on land. He then sank into a deep silence 
 and prayed, after which he delivered to the sailor whom he most 
 esteemed, his picture to be conveyed to his wife, and his large sabre, 
 which he called his paternal sword, to be presented to his only son 
 and heir. This solemn ceremony being finished, he stood up, and 
 with a frank and indeed very cheerful expression of countenance, 
 asked for some brandy to treat his sailors at parting. He drank 
 with them, and accompanied them on deck, when they were landed, 
 and proceeded without interruption towards the fortress." 
 
 Rikord was a good deal troubled and alarmed at the air and 
 manner of Kachi ; and finally, after consulting with his officers 
 concluded to dismiss him unconditionally,* trusting to his honor for 
 his doing his best to procure the release of the Russians. 
 
 Kachi was greatly delighted at this mark of confidence, the ugh 
 he declined to go on shore till the next day, as it would not ...on- 
 
478 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811—1813. 
 
 form to Japanese ideas of etiquette for him to land on the same 
 day with his sailors. He confessed to Rikord that he had been 
 greatly wounded by the threat to carry him to Okhotsk. It was not 
 consistent with Japanese ideas, that a man of his position should 
 remain a prisoner in a foreign country, and he had therefore made 
 up his mind to prevent it by cutting himself open. He had accord- 
 ingly cut off the tuft of hair from his head, — and he showed that 
 it was gone, — and had laid it in the box with his picture ; it being 
 customary with those about to die honorably, by their own hands, in 
 a distant place, to send this token to their friends, who bury the 
 tuft of hair with all the ceremonies which they would have bestowed 
 upon the body. And he even intimated that previous to doing this 
 execution on himself, he might first have stabbed Rikord and the 
 next in command. 
 
 Kachi exerted himself with the greatest energy in the matter of 
 the negotiation, and he soon was able to produce a letter, in the 
 hand- writing of Golownin, and signed by him and Moor, but which 
 the jealousy of their keepers had limited to the simple announce- 
 ment that they were alive and well at Matsmai. Afterwards one 
 of the imprisoned Russian sailors was brought on board the ship, 
 being sent from Matsmai for that purpose ; but, though allowed to 
 spend his days on board the Diana, he was required to return to the 
 fort every night. In spite, however, of all the watchfulness of the 
 Japanese, he had brought sewed up in his jacket a letter from 
 Golownin, in which he recommended prudence, civility, candor, and 
 especially patience, and entreated that no letters nor anything else 
 should be sent him which might cause him to be tormented with 
 questions and translations. 
 
 The Japanese would not deliver up their prisoners till the Diara 
 first sailed to Okhotsk, and brought from the authorities there a 
 formal written disavowal of the hostilities of Chwostoff. At Okhotsk 
 was found the letter from the governor of Irkutsk, previously sent 
 for at Kachi's suggestion, and with this document and another 
 letter from the commander at Okhotsk, the Diana reached Hokodade 
 towards the end of October. 
 
 " As we approached the town," says Rikord, " we observed that 
 cloth was hung out only at a few places on the hill, or near it, and 
 not over the whole buildings, as at Kunashir. With the assistance 
 
THE DIANA Al HAKODADE. 479 
 
 of our telescopes, we observed six of Oaese screens of cloth, probably 
 intended to conceal fortifications. There were, beside, five new for- 
 tifications at short distances from each other, and from two to three 
 hundred fathoms from the shore. 
 
 " We no sooner entered the roads than we were surrounded by a 
 number of boats, of all descriptions and sizes, filled with the curious 
 of both sexes. A European ship must, indeed, have been to them 
 an object of uncommon interest ; for, as far as I could ascertain, 
 they had seen none since they were visited twenty-two years before 
 by Laxman. # Many of the inhabitants, therefore, had never beheld 
 a European vessel of any kind, and still less a ship of war ; they 
 accordingly thronged about us in vast numbers, and their curiosity 
 frequently gave rise to disputes among themselves. The Doseene 
 (soldiers), who were stationed in the watch-boats, continually called 
 to them to keep at a further distance ; but so great was the confu- 
 sion that, though the people generally showed great respect to the 
 soldiers, their orders were on this occasion disregarded. The mili- 
 tary, therefore, were under the necessity of using the iron batons 
 which they wear fastened to their girdles by long silken strings. 
 They neither spared rank nor sex ; old persons alone experienced 
 their indulgence, and we had various opportunities of observing 
 that the Japanese, in all situations, pay particular respect to old 
 age. In this case blows were freely dealt out to the young, of every 
 description, who ventured to disobey the commands of the soldiers, 
 and we were at length delivered from a multitude of visitors, who 
 would have subjected us to no small degree of inconvenience." 
 
 Kachi came on board the next morning, and the letter from the 
 governor of Okhotsk was given to him to be transmitted to the gov- 
 ernor of Matsmai ; but Captain Rikord refused to deliver the other 
 letter except in person. After much negotiation, the ceremonial for 
 an interview was arranged. The Japanese even conceded that the 
 
 * There has been a great alteration in the last twenty years. Siebold 
 states that sisty-eight square-rigged vessels — mostly no doubt Ameri.un 
 vhalers — had been counted by the Japanese as passing Matsmai and Ha- 
 kodade in one year. According to a memorandum furnished to Commodore 
 Perry during his recent visit to Hakodade (May 3d, 1854), there had been, 
 in the years 1847 — 1851, no less than five foreign vessels wrecked in that 
 vicinity. 
 
480 JAPAN. A. D. 1811—1813. 
 
 ten men, who landed with' Rikord as his guard of honor, should be 
 allowed to take their muskets with them ; he, on his part, agreeing 
 to land in the Japanese governor's barge, and, before entering the 
 audience chamber, to substitute, instead of his boots, shoes, which 
 Kachi undertook to pass off as leather stockings. Bikord had for 
 his interpreter a Japanese whom he had brought from Okhotsk, sent 
 thither from Irkutsk, and who bore the Russian name of Kesseleff. 
 The Japanese had Teske, who had learnt Russian of Grolownin. 
 The governor of Matsmai, Chatori-Bingo-no-kami, was represented 
 on this occasion by the governor of Hakodade, and by an acade 
 mician sent for the express purpose of making observations on the 
 Russian ship of war, and collecting particulars respecting European 
 science, — no other, indeed, than Doeffs friend, " Grlobius." 
 
 The letter of the governor of Irkutsk was delivered, with great 
 formality, in a box covered with purple cloth. Rikord took it out, 
 read the address aloud, and returned it. Kesseleff, -Rikord's inter- 
 preter, then handed the box to Teske, who raised it above his head, 
 and placed it in .the hands of the junior commissioner, who delivered 
 it to the senior commissioner, who promised to deliver it to the 
 bungo or governor. An entertainment followed of tea and sweet- 
 meats, during which a Japanese was placed beside Rikord to receive 
 and hand to him his share of the eatables. 
 
 From the moment of the departure of the Diana for Okhotsk, 
 Golownin and his companions had began to be treated rather as 
 guests than prisoners. They were soon conveyed back to Hakodade, 
 and at length, after a confinement of more than two years, were 
 delivered up to Rikord, with a paper of which the following are the 
 material parts : 
 
 NOTIFICATION FROM THE GINB1IYAKS, THE CHIEF COMMANDERS -NEXT TO THE 
 BUNGO OF MATSMAI. 
 
 " Twenty- two years ago a Russian vessel arrived at Matsmai, and eleven 
 years ago another came to Nagasaki. Though the laws of our country were 
 on both these occasions minutely explained, yet we are of opinion that we 
 have not been clearly understood on your part, owing to the great dissimi- 
 larity between our languages and writing. However, as we have now de- 
 tained you, it will be easy to give you an explanation of these matters. 
 When you return to Russia, communicate to the commanders of the coasts 
 of Kamtschatka, Okhotsk and others, the declaration of our bungo, which 
 
WARNING OFF. 481 
 
 will acquaint them with the nature of the Japanese laws with respect to the 
 arrival of foreign ships, and prevent a repetition of similar transgressions on 
 your part. 
 
 " In our country the Christian religion is strictly prohibited, and European 
 vessels are not suffered to enter any Japanese harbor except Nagasaki. This 
 law does not extend to Russian vessels only. This year it has not been en- 
 forced, because we wished to communicate with your countrymen ; but all 
 that may henceforth present themselves will be driven back by cannon-balls. 
 Bear in mind this declaration, and you cannot complain if at any future 
 period you should experience a misfortune in consequence of your disregard 
 of it. 
 
 ' : Among us there exists this law : ' If any European residing in Japan 
 shall attempt to teach our people the Christian faith, he shall undergo a 
 severe punishment, and shall not be restored to his native country.' As you, 
 however, have not attempted to do so, you will accordingly be permitted to 
 return home. Think well on this. 
 
 "Our countrymen wish to carry on no commerce with foreign lands, for 
 we know no want of necessary things. Though foreigners are permitted to 
 trade to Nagasaki, even to that harbor only those are admitted with whom 
 we have for a long period maintained relations, and we do not trade with 
 them for the sake of gain, but for other important objects. From the re- 
 peated solicitations which you have hitherto made to us, you evidently im- 
 agine that the customs of our country resemble those of your own ; but you 
 are very wrong in thinking so. In future, therefore, it will be better to say 
 no more about a commercial connection." 
 
 Iii all this business the efforts of Kachi had been indefatigable. 
 At first he was treated by his own countrymen with the suspicion 
 and reserve extended to all, even native Japanese, who come from 
 a foreign country. For a long time he was not permitted to visit 
 Golownin. A guard was set over him, and even his friends and 
 relations could not see him except in presence of an imperial soldier. 
 In fact, according to the Japanese laws, as a person just returned 
 from a foreign country, he ought to have been allowed no corre- 
 spondence at all with his friends. The governor of Hakodade, 
 having a letter for him from his only son, said not a word to him 
 about it, but having sent for him to convey a letter from Golownin 
 on board the Diana, while walking up and down the room, threw 
 his son's letter towards him, as if it had been a piece of waste paper 
 taken out of his sleeve accidentally with the other letter, and then 
 turned his back to give him time to pick it up. # 
 
 * In Japan, as elsewhere, etiquette requires a good many things to be done 
 41 
 
482 JAPAN. — A. D. 1811 1813. 
 
 Kachi's abduction had thrown his family into great distress. A 
 celebrated priest, or spirit-medium, at Hakodade, to the question 
 whether he ever would return, had answered, " Kachi will return 
 the ensuing summer, with two of his companions ; the remaining 
 two have perished in a foreign land." This answer was communi- 
 cated to Golownin, who laughed at it ; but when, on Kachi's return, 
 it appeared that two of his Japanese attendants had actually died, 
 the Japanese believers were greatly edified, and highly indignant 
 at Golownin's persistence in maintaining that there was more of 
 luck than foresight in the prophecy. Kachi's wife, — another prob- 
 ably than the young female with whom we are already acquainted, — 
 in her grief made a vow to go on a pilgrimage through the whole 
 of Japan ; and Kachi assured Captain Rikord that scarcely had 
 she returned from her pilgrimage, when she received his letter from 
 Kunashir, announcing his return. 
 
 Kachi had a bosom friend, who, on learning his fate, divided his 
 large property among the poor, and took up his residence in the moun- 
 tains, as a hermit. As appeared on various occasions, Kachi was a 
 strict disciplinarian, and very punctilious. He had a daughter, whom, 
 owing to seme misconduct, he had discarded. She was dead to him, 
 so he said ; . and to Rikord, to whom he had told the story, and who 
 had taken an interest in the girl, he had insisted that a reconciliation 
 would be inconsistent with his honor. Yet, to show his hermit 
 friend that in the way of self-sacrifice he was not to be outdone, 
 he made up his mind to the great effort of calling his daughter 
 into life, and forgiving her. His friend would, he said, when this 
 communication was made to him, at once understand it. 
 
 During Kachi's absence his mercantile affairs had prospered, 
 and before Rikord's departure he brought on board the Diana, with 
 all the evidence of paternal pride, his son, who seemed, indeed, to 
 be a promising youth. He was very liberal in his distribution of 
 silk and cotton wadded dresses to the crew, to all of whom he gave 
 one or more, to his favorites the best ones, taking especial care 
 to remember the cook. He then begged to be allowed to treat them. 
 " Sailors, captain," so he said to Rikord, " are all alike, whether 
 
 under feigned pretences, and on many occasions an affected ignorance of 
 what everybody knows. The Japanese have a particular term (neboen) to 
 express this way of doing things. 
 
SOCIAL POSITION OF MERCHANTS. 48d 
 
 Russian or Japanese. They are all fond of a glass ; and there is 
 no danger in the harbor of Hakodade." So the sailors had a night 
 of it, being plentifully supplied with saki and Japanese tobacco. 
 
 Though he refused all presents of value, as being indeed prohib* 
 ited by Japanese law, Kachi accepted with pleasure a Russian tea- 
 set, as it would enable him, in entertaining his friends, to call to 
 mind his Russian hosts ; and he expressed much regret that the 
 custom of his country did not allow him to invite Rikord to his 
 own house. Finally, he brought a number of boats *to help tow the 
 Diana out of the harbor. 
 
 This is the only full-length portrait we possess of a Japanese mer- 
 chant ; and, if it represents the class, the fraternity have reason to 
 be proud of their Japanese brethren. " The class of merchants in 
 Japan," says Grolownin, "is very extensive and rich, but not held in 
 honor. The merchants have not the right to bear arms ; * but though 
 their profession is not respected, their wealth is ; for this, as in Eu- 
 rope, supplies the place of talents and dignity, and attains privileges 
 and honorable places. The Japanese told us that their officers of 
 state and men of rank behave themselves outwardly with great 
 ' haughtiness to the merchants, but in private are very familiar with 
 the rich ones, and are often under great obligations to them. We 
 had with us for some time a young officer, who was the son of a rich 
 merchant, and who, as the Japanese said, owed his rank not to his 
 own merit, but to his father's gold. Thus, though the laws do not 
 favor the mercantile profession, yet wealth raises it ; for even in 
 Japan, where the laws are so rigorously enforced, they are often 
 weighed down by the influence of gold." 
 
 * Yet Kachi "wore two swords, though perhaps he did it in the character 
 of a ship-master, or as an officer in authority in the island to which he traded 
 from Hakodade, carrying on the fishery there chiefly by means of native Ku- 
 riles. These islands appear to have been farmed out by the government to 
 certain mercantile firms, which thus acquire a certain civil authority 
 over the inhabitants. The privilege of wearing swords, like other similar 
 privileges elsewhere, is probably rather encroached upon by the unprivileged. 
 On festival days, even the poorest inhabitants of Nagasaki decked themselves 
 out, according to Kampfer, with at least one sword. The present of a 
 sword as a marriage gift — and it is ceremonies practised among the mer- 
 cantile class, to which reference is made — is mentioned on p. 437. 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 RENEWAL OF THE DUTCH TRADE. — CAPTAIN GORDON IN THE BAT OF JEDO 
 
 FISSCHER. MEYLAN. SIEBOLD. —BRITISH MUTINEERS. VOYAGE Of 
 
 THE MORRISON. JAPANESE EDICT. THE SARAMANGAT NAGASAKI. — 
 
 THE MERCATOR IN THE BAY OF JEDO. COMMODORE BIDDLE IN THE BAY 
 
 OF JEDO. SHIPWRECKED AMERICANS. — FRENCH SHIPS OF WAR AT NA- 
 GASAKI. — THE PREBLE AT NAGASAKI. — SURVEYING SHIP MARINER IN 
 
 THE BAYS OF JEDO AND SIMODA. NEW NOTIFICATION THROUGH THE 
 
 DUTCH. — A. D. 1817—1850. 
 
 Great was the delight of Heer Doeff, when, in the year 1817, two 
 vessels arrived at last from Batavia, bringing news of its restoration 
 to the Dutch ; also — what was hardly less welcome — a supply of t 
 butter, wine, and other European creature comforts ; together with 
 goods for renewing the trade, and a decoration of the order of the 
 Lion for Doeff, whose conduct in holding out against the English 
 had been highly approved in Holland. 
 
 On board these ships were several women, among others the wife 
 of Herr Blomhoff, appointed to succeed Doeff as director, who had 
 with her an infant child. This novelty greatly disturbed the Jap- 
 anese. It was with the utmost difficulty that permission was ob- 
 tained for the wife of the new director to land ; her remaining was a 
 thing not to be listened to, and she was obliged to leave her hus- 
 band and to return to Batavia in the departing ships * 
 
 Shortly after this renewal of the old Dutch intercourse, a new 
 English attempt was made at commerce with Japan. Captain 
 
 * The old East India Company having become extinct, the Dutch trade to 
 Japan had been revived as a government affair. A new Dutch East India 
 Company having been formed, it was handed over to that company in 1827, 
 but, after a two years' trial, was restored again to the government, in whos* 
 hands it still remains. 
 
AN ENGLISH SKIP IN THE BAY OF JEDO. 485 
 
 Gordon, of the British navy, entered, in June, 1818, the bay of 
 Jedo, in a little trading brig, from Okhotsk, of sixty-five tons' bur- 
 den. He was immediately visited by two officers, to whom he 
 said that he had come merely to obtain permission to return with 
 a cargo of goods for sale. They insisted upon unshipping his rud- 
 der, and required all his arms to be given up. The vessel was then 
 surrounded by a circle of some twenty boats, and beyond by a circle 
 of sixty larger ones, besides two or three junks, mounting a number 
 of guns. Two interpreters came on board, one speaking Dutch, 
 the other some Russian, and both a little English. They inquired 
 if the vessel belonged to the East India Company ; if the English 
 were friends of the Dutch, and if Captain Golownin was at Okhotsk. 
 They asked after the king of Holland, the king of France, and 
 Bonaparte. They knew the names and uses of the various nauti- 
 cal instruments, and said that the best were made at London. In 
 a subsequent visit, they told Captain Gordon that permission could 
 not be granted for his trading to Japan, as by their laws all foreign 
 intercourse was interdicted, except at Nagasaki, and there only 
 allowed with the Dutch and Chinese, and he was requested to de- 
 part the moment the wind was fair. The interpreters declined any 
 presents, being prohibited, they said, from accepting any. Captain 
 Gordon was much struck with the polite and affable conduct of the 
 Japanese, both towards him and towards each other. Everything 
 that had been taken on shore was carefully returned, and thirty 
 boats were sent to tow the vessel out of the bay. The shores were 
 lined with spectators, and, as soon as the guard-boats had left, not 
 less than two thousand visitors came on board in succession, all 
 eager to barter for trifles * 
 
 In 1820, J. F. Van Overmeer Fisscher arrived at Nagasaki, as 
 a member of the factory. He resided there for seven years, and 
 after his return to Holland, published, in 1833, a work in the 
 Dutch language, entitled " Contributions towards a Knowledge of 
 the Japanese Empire," embellished with engravings from Japanese 
 drawings, so superior to former specimens as to give occasion for 
 some suspicion of aid from the European engraver. 
 
 * Sec London Quarterly Review, for July, 1819, in a note to an article or 
 Golownin's narrative. The statement about bartering is questionable. 
 41* 
 
486 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1850. 
 
 • •- ■ 
 
 In 1822, Fisscher accompanied Blomhoff in the quadriennial em- 
 bassy to, Jedo, which, from its long intermission, appears to have 
 excited unusual attention. It had been proposed to make the 
 embassy annual as formerly ; but to this change the Japanese 
 authorities would not assent. Fisscher's account of the journey does 
 not differ materially from that given by Kampfer and Thunberg. 
 The entrance into Jedo, notwithstanding the absence of carriages, 
 reminded him, from the noise and the throng of people, of the com- 
 mercial parts of London. The shops had signs, as in Europe ; the 
 goods were exhibited from the doors and windows under the charge 
 of boys, who rivalled each other in calling by loud cries the atten- 
 tion of purchasers. Long before entering Sinegawa they found 
 themselves in the midst of a vast crowd, marching along broad 
 streets, paved at the sides, formed of houses, regularly built, among 
 which were many large buildings. From the suburb to their hotel, 
 called Nagasakia, and in the immediate vicinity of the palace, it 
 was two hours' march ; and, as the palace was said to occupy a 
 space half a Japanese mile in diameter, Fisscher estimates the diam- 
 eter of the whole city at not less than five or six hours* walk at an 
 ordinary step. 
 
 After the audience and the official visits were over, the Dutch 
 spent twelve days in receiving visits. Among the crowds who 
 obtained the privilege of seeing them, were several princes or their 
 secretaries, and many savans, DoeiPs Grlobius among the rest. Sev- 
 eral of these visitors had more or less knowledge of the Dutch lan- 
 guage, and great eagerness was exhibited to obtain new scientific 
 information. To a party given to the Dutch by the master of the 
 mint and the conductor of the embassy, many of the Japanese 
 guests came rigged out in Dutch clothes ; and as these had been 
 collected through long intervals, and preserved as curiosities, they 
 presented a very grotesque and antique appearance* Fisscher's own 
 party were laid under contribution in the same way, their lady visit- 
 ors unpacking and rummaging their trunks, and putting them to the 
 necessity of giving away some of the most valuable articles. The 
 
 * Siebold represents the Dutch at Desima as humoring the Japanese antip- 
 athy to change, by adhering in their dress to the old fashion, and as rigged 
 out in velvet coats and plumed hats, in the style of Vandyke's pictures 
 
JAPANESE WOMEN. 487 
 
 greater part, however, were content with a few words written on 
 their fans. 
 
 Mr. Gr. F. Meylan, who first arrived in Japan shortly after Fiss- 
 cher left it, and who subsequently died there, as director, has also 
 contributed something to our knowledge of Japan, by a thin vol- 
 ume published in 1830, like Fisscher's, in the Dutch language, with 
 the title of " Japan ; presented in Sketches of the Manners and Cus- 
 toms of that Realm, especially of the Town of Nagasaki." One of 
 the most original things in Meylan's book is his apology for the 
 custom of the Dutch in taking female companions from the Nagasaki 
 tea-houses. None of the male Japanese servants are allowed to 
 remain in Desima over night. " How, then," plaintively asks Mr. 
 Meylan, " could the Dutch residents otherwise manage to procure any 
 domestic comfort in the long nights of winter, — their tea-water, for 
 instance, — were it not for these females ? " He passes a high eulogy 
 upon their strict fidelity and affectionate activity ; and indeed the con- 
 nection appears to be regarded by them nat so much in the light in 
 which we see it, as in- that of a temporary marriage. The female 
 inmates of the Japanese iea-houses hold, indeed, in the estimation of 
 their own people, a very different position from that which our man- 
 ners would assign to them ; since not only is the custom of frequenting 
 these houses, as places of relaxation and amusement, general among 
 the men, but sometimes, according to Fisscher, they even take their 
 wives along with them. 
 
 Of the personal charms of these wives, with their teeth blackened, 
 their eyebrows shaven, their lips painted red and their faces 
 white, Fisscher does not give a very high idea. The concubines do 
 not shave their eyebrows, but the custom of blackening the teeth is 
 so common as to be adopted by all females above the age of eigh- 
 teen. The immoderate use of the warm bath causes them to look, at 
 twenty-five, at least ten years older. Not content with the natural 
 burdens of child-bearing, they augment them by several absurd 
 customs, one of which is the wearing, during pregnancy, a tight 
 girdle round the body. 
 
 The works of Fisscher and Meylan are chiefly valuable for the 
 confirmation they give of Kiimpfer's accounts, and as showing the 
 Japanese very little altered from what tb.ey were when he described 
 thciii. A visitant to Japan, and a wr'ter of much higher preten- 
 
188 uAPAN. — A D. 1817—1850. 
 
 sions, is Dr. Pliilipp Franz Yon Siebold, who was sent out, in 1823, 
 commissioned by the Dutch government, to make all possible inves- 
 tigations, as well into the language, literature and institutions, as 
 into the natural history of the country. The Japanese interpreters 
 understood Dutch so well as to detect his foreign accent, but they 
 were satisfied with the explanation that he was a Dutch mountain- 
 eer. He availed himself, as Kampfer had done, of all means that 
 offered to elude the restrictive laws ; and he found, like Thunberg 
 and Titsingh, a certain number of the natives very anxious to obtain 
 information, and by no means unwilling secretly to impart it. 
 
 In 1826, he accompanied Van Sturlen, the director, on the 
 quadriennial journey to Jedo, taking with him a young na- 
 tive physician, a native artist, and several servants to assist his 
 researches into natural history. Following, as Fisscher had done, 
 nearly or quite in Kampfer's old route, he saw, in the passage across 
 Kiusiu, the same old camphor-tree, as flourishing, apparently, as 
 it had been a hundred and thirty-five years before, but with a hollow 
 in its trunk large enough to hold fifteen men. He visited the 
 same hot springs, and descended so'me sixty feet into the coal mine, 
 near Kokura, mentioned by Kampfer. He saw only .one thin seam 
 of coal, but was told of thicker ones below — an account which the 
 coal drawn up seemed to confirm. 
 
 At Jedo he met with many Japanese physicians, astronomers and 
 others, of whose acquisitions he speaks with much respect. 
 
 Besides the other means, already pointed out, of measuring "ime, 
 he saw in use there Chinese clysedrus, or water-clocks ; but the 
 method most relied upon for scientific purposes was a clock, of which 
 the idea was derived from one introduced into China by the Jesuit 
 Ricci, and brought thence to Japan. This clock is worked by two 
 balances, one to act by day and the other by night. The arm of 
 each balance is notched, to accord with the variations in the length 
 of the hours. At the summer solstice the weights are hung respec- 
 tively upon the outermost notch of the day-balance, and upon the 
 innermost notch of the night-balance. At intervals of six days, 
 four hours and twelve minutes, both weights are moved ; that of the 
 day-balance a notch inward, that of the night-balance a notch out- 
 Ward, until at the winter solstice their original positions are reversed 
 
 After Siebold's return to Nagasaki, he continued diligently ti> 
 
PHILIPP FRANZ VON SIEBOLD. 489 
 
 follow out his object, keeping up, through means of the interpreters, 
 a correspondence with his Jedo friends. In the course of five years he 
 had not onty made large collections for the government of specimens 
 in natural history, but also, on his own account, of Japanese books 
 and other curiosities, besides acquiring a considerable knowledge of 
 the language. His collections in natural history had been shipped 
 to Batavia ; he was preparing himself to follow, when an unlucky 
 disclosure took place. The imperial astronomer, notwithstanding 
 the law to the contrary, had secretly sent him a copy of a new map 
 of Japan, lately constructed on European principles. One of the* 
 draftsmen employed in making it having quarrelled with the astron- 
 omer, informed against him, in consequence of which the astrono- 
 mer, his servants, the interpreters, several of Siebold's pupils, and 
 other Japanese suspected of being concerned in this affair, were 
 arrested and subjected to a strict examination. Siebold himself 
 was called upon to give up the map ; and, when he hesitated about 
 it, underwent a domiciliary visit, followed by an order to consider 
 himself under arrest, and a prohibition to leave Japan until the 
 investigation was terminated. Finding thus not only the fruits 
 of his own labor, but the lives of his Japanese friends, in danger, 
 he made a full confession as to the map, endeavoring thus to 
 remove suspicions and to preserve some other documents in his pos- 
 session, of which the Japanese yet had no knowledge, and which 
 might have compromised other persons not yet suspected. Studiously 
 concealing the connection of the Dutch government with his mission, 
 he thought it best to represent himself as simply a private inquirer, 
 whose researches into natural history and the physical sciences 
 might be no less useful to the Japanese than they were interesting 
 to himself. Of the particulars of this affair no account has ever 
 been published. It is said that some of his Japanese friends found 
 it necessary to cut themselves open, but Siebold himself was 
 speedily released, with his entire collections, which he brought with 
 him to Holland, and by means of which he converted his residence 
 at Leyden into a very curious Japanese museum. 
 
 The fruits of his researches, so far as zoology is concerned, and 
 of those of Dr. Burger, left behind as his successor, have been pub- 
 lished by the labors of some distinguished naturalists, and under 
 the patronage of the king of Holland, in a very splendid and ex 
 
490 JAPAN. — A. D, 1817—1850. 
 
 pensive work, called Fauna Japonica, with colored plates of most 
 of the animals described, and in the preparation of which the native 
 works on the subject were largely consulted. This work include? 
 three lizards, two tortoises, six snakes, eleven of the frog family, 
 three hundred and fifty-nine fishes (Siebold describes the Japanese 
 as a nation of fish-eaters), besides several whales, and two hundred 
 and two birds. The principal quadrupeds, natives of Japan, and 
 described in it, are a small deer, an antelope, in the most southern 
 parts an ape, a wolf, a bear, and in Jeso another more ferocious 
 species, like the Rocky Mountain bear, a wild hog, two foxes, and 
 a number of smaller animals. There is no animal of the cat kind, 
 except the domestic cat. The dogs used for hunting appear to be 
 indigenous. There are pet house-dogs, derived from China, and 
 troops of street-dogs — belonging to no individual, but denizens of 
 particular streets — of a mongrel breed between the two. 
 
 The Flora Japonica, prepared by Zaccarini, from Siebold's col- 
 lection, containing descriptions and drawings of one hundred and 
 twenty-four remarkable plants, was interrupted by the death of that 
 botanist, as was also another, less costly, but fuller enumeration of 
 Japanese plants, arranged in natural families. The latter work, so 
 far as completed, contains four hundred and seventy-eight genera, 
 and eight hundred and forty-seven species. Siebold states, that of 
 five hundred plants most remarkable for ornament or utility, at 
 least half are of foreign origin, chiefly from China. 
 
 Siebold's observations, during his residence in Japan, upon other 
 subjects than natural history, have been principally embraced in a 
 publication in numbers, originally in German, but a French trans- 
 lation of parts of which has appeared, entitled " Nippon, or Ar- 
 chives for the Description of Japan." This work, projected like 
 most of Siebold's publications, on an extensive scale, contains many 
 translations from Japanese historical works, and exhibits a great 
 deal of erudition, at the same time it is diffuse, confused, incohe- 
 rent, introducing a great deal of matter with only a remote bearing 
 on the subject ; and, whatever light it may throw upon some partic- 
 ular points, not, on the whole, adding a great deal to the knowledge 
 we previously had of Japan, so far, at least, as the general reader 
 would be likely to take an interest in it.* 
 
 A series of numbers, professing to give the substance of the recent work* 
 
VOYAGE OF THE MORRISON. 491 
 
 The same year in which Siebold was released, a party of English 
 convicts, on their way to Australia in the brig Cyprus, mutinied 
 and got possession of the vessel. After cruising about for five 
 months, being in great distress for wood and water, they anchored 
 on the coast of Japan ; but they were fired at from the shore, and 
 obliged to depart without accomplishing their object. 
 
 Not long after this occurrence, three Japanese, the only survi- 
 vors of the crew of a junk, driven by storms across the Pacific, 
 landed on Queen Charlotte's Island, on the north-west coast of 
 America. They were seized by tLe natives, but were redeemed by 
 an agent of the English Fur Company at the mouth of Columbia 
 river, and sent to England. From England they were carried to 
 Macao, where they were placed in the family of Mr. Glutzlaff, the 
 missionary. Some time after, four other Japanese, who had been 
 wrecked on the Philippines, were brought to Macao. 
 
 The return of these men to their homes seemed a good opportu 
 nity for opening a communication with Japan, as well for mercan- 
 tile as for missionary purposes, and an American mercantile house 
 at Macao fitted out the brig Morrison for that purpose, in which 
 sailed one of the partners, Dr. Parker, a missionary physician, and 
 Mr. S. W. Williams, one of the editors of the Chinese Repository, 
 and afterwards Chinese interpreter to Commodore Perry's squad 
 ron. At Lew Chew, where the vessel touched, Mr. Grutzlaff also 
 came on board. 
 
 on Japan, principally Fisschcr's, Meylan's, and Siebold's, appeared in the 
 Asiatic Journal, during the years 1839 and 1840, and were afterwards col 
 lected and published at London in a volume, and reprinted in Harper's Fam- 
 ily Library, with the title of Manners and Customs of the Japanese in the 
 Nineteenth Century. The same numbers, to which some others were sub- 
 sequently added in the Asiatic Journal, were reprinted in the Chinese Re- 
 pository, with notes, derived from the information given to the editor by the 
 shipwrecked Japanese, whom, as mentioned above, it was attempted to carry 
 home in the Morrison. In the index to the Chinese Repository these num 
 bers are ascribed to a lady, a Mrs. B. 
 
 A still more elaborate and comprehensive work, based mainly on the same 
 materials, and often drawing largely from the one above referred to, but 
 rendered more complete by extracts from Kiimpfer and Thunberg, is De 
 Jancigny's "Japan," published at Paris, in 1850, as a part of the great French 
 collection, entitled L'univers, ou Histoire et Description de tout les Peuples. 
 
 Neither of these works contains any account of the Portuguese missions. 
 
492 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1850. 
 
 On the 27th of July, 1837, the chain of islands was made lead- 
 ing up to the bay of Jedo, up which the Morrison proceeded some 
 thirty miles, to Uragawa, the west coast of the bay, rising hill above 
 hill, and the view terminating in the lofty peak of Fnsi. Near 
 Uragawa, many of the hills were cultivated in terraces, but the 
 general aspect of the shores was bleak and barren. Just above, the 
 passage was narrowed by two points of land projecting from oppo- 
 site directions. 
 
 Having anchored about three quarters of a mile from the shore, 
 the ship was soon visited by a number of boats. Their crews, some 
 two hundred in number, and evidently of the lower class, hardly 
 seemed to understand the Chinese writing in which provisions, water, 
 and a government officer to communicate with, were asked for. 
 They seemed, however, to invite a landing ; but during the night 
 cannon were planted on the nearest eminence, and, though the firing 
 was unskilful, the Morrison was obliged to weigh. She was pur- 
 sued by three gun-boats,, each with thirty or forty men, which bore 
 down upon her, firing swivels ; but when she lay to to wait for 
 them, they retired. A piece of canvas, on which was painted, in 
 Chinese, that a foreign ship desired to return some shipwrecked 
 natives, and to obtain some provisions and water, was thrown over- 
 board ; but, though it was picked up, no notice was taken of it. 
 The Japanese on board, who had recognized the shores of their 
 country with delight, were much mortified at the result, which they 
 ascribed in part to their not having been allowed to communicate 
 with their countrymen. 
 
 For the purpose of making a second experiment, on the 20th of 
 August the Morrison entered the bay of Kangosima, in the princi- 
 pality of Satsuma. The shores, rising gradually from the water, 
 were under high cultivation. A boat from the ship boarded a 
 Japanese fishing-vessel, and proceeded to a little village, where 
 they found the people in great commotion. The Morrison followed, 
 and ; when opposite the village, was visited by a richly-dressed 
 officer, with a number of almost naked attendants. He stated that, 
 supposing the ship to be a pirate, preparations had been made to 
 fire on her ; but, satisfied by the representations of the Japanese 
 on board of the true state of the case, he received, with much ap- 
 parent interest, the despatches prepared for the prince of Satsuma 
 
THE MORRISON DRIVEN OFF. 493 
 
 and the emperor, which he promised to deliver to a superior officer. 
 He left a pilot on board ; a supply of water was sent, and the ship 
 was visited by many boat-loads of people, superior in appearance 
 to those seen in the bay of Jedo ; but they brought nothing to sell. 
 
 The despatches were soon brought back by several officers, the 
 superior officer, it was stated, declining to receive them. They 
 added that the depositions of the Japanese passengers, who had 
 landed for the purpose of giving them, had been forwarded to Kan- 
 gosima, and that a superior officer might be expected from that 
 city. Provisions were promised, and that the vessel should be 
 towed higher up the bay; but, early in the morning of the twelfth, 
 the crew of a fishing-boat communicated to the Japanese on board a 
 rumor that the ship was to be expelled. Warlike preparations were 
 soon seen on shore, in strips of blue and white canvas stretched from 
 tree to tree. The Japanese on board stated, with rueful faces, that 
 these preparations portended war ; nor, according to their descrip- 
 tion, were these cloth batteries so contemptible as they might seem, 
 as four or five pieces of heavy canvas, loosely stretched, one behind 
 another, at short intervals, would weaken the force" of, indeed, 
 almost stop, a cannon ball. 
 
 Officers on horseback, and several hundred soldiers, soon made 
 their appearance, and a fire of musketry and artillery was com- 
 menced. The anchor was weighed, and the sails set, but there was 
 no wind. For eighteen hours the ship was exposed, without any 
 means of offering resistance, to two fires from opposite sides of the 
 bay, which was from three to five miles broad, till, at last, she was 
 with difficulty conducted clear of the shoals, and past the forts. 
 
 All hope of friendly intercourse, or of returning the men, was 
 now abandoned. The poor fellows suffered severely at this unex- 
 pected extinction of their prospect of revisiting their families. They 
 expressed great indignation at the conduct of their countrymen, and 
 two of them shaved their heads entirely, in token, as it was under- 
 stood, of having renounced their native soil. As it was not deemed 
 expedient to go to Nagasaki, where the Japanese on board expressed 
 their determination not to land, the Morrison returned to Macao* 
 
 * Three accounts of this voyage have been published, one by Williama 
 Chinese Repository, Nov. and Dec, 1837); a second by Parker, London, 
 42 
 
494 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1850. 
 
 In 1843, probably in consequence of this visit of the Morrison, 
 the Japanese authorities promulgated an edict, of which the follow- 
 ing is a translation, as given by the Dutch at Desima, who were 
 requested to communicate to the other European nations — the first 
 attempt ever made to employ their agency for that purpose. 
 
 " Shipwrecked persons of the Japanese nation must not be brought back 
 to their country, except on board of Dutch or Chinese ships, for, in case 
 these shipwrecked persons shall be brought back in the ships of other na- 
 tions, they will not be received. Considering the express prohibition, even 
 to Japanese subjects, to explore or make examinations of the coasts or islands 
 of the empire, this prohibition, for greater reason, is extended to foreigners." 
 
 The British opium war in China, of the progress of which the 
 Japanese were well informed, if it increased the desire of the Eng- 
 lish to gain access to Japan, did not, by any means, diminish the 
 Japanese dread of foreigners.* 
 
 In 1845, the British surveying frigate Saramang entered the 
 
 1838, and a third by King, New York, 1839. It is possible that outrages 
 by whaling vessels, which had begun to frequent the seas of Japan in con- 
 siderable numbers, might have somewhat increased the antipathy of the 
 Japanese towards foreigners. Of transactions of that kind we should be 
 little likely to hear, but that they did sometimes occur, seems to be proved 
 by a paragraph in the Sidney Gazette of Feb. 1842, warning mariners to be 
 cautious how they landed on Japan, as a Japanese village on the east coast 
 of the islands, somewhere near 43° north latitude, had been recently de- 
 stroyed by the crew of the Lady Rowena, then in the harbor of Sidney, and 
 whose captain openly boasted of the fact. 
 
 * Had the Japanese been readers of the London newspapers, they might 
 have found in the following paragraph, which appeared in the Examiner of 
 January 21st, 1843, fresh motives for persisting in their exclusive policy : — 
 " Missionaries to China. — One of the largest meetings, perhaps, ever 
 held in Exeter Hall, was held on Tuesday evening, convened by the London 
 Missionary Society, to consider the means of extending and promoting in China 
 the objects of the society. Wm. T. Blair, Esq., of Bath, presided. Dr. Lief- 
 child moved the first resolution, expressive of thanksgiving to God for the 
 war between China and Great Britain [the infamous opium war], and for 
 the greatly enlarged facilities secured by the treaty of peace for the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity into that empire. This resolution was seconded by the 
 Rev. Dr. Adler, and was carried unanimously." I have met with nothing in 
 the letters of the Jesuit missionaries, nor in the history of the Jesuit missions, 
 that can be compared with this specimen of Protestant zeaL 
 
VOYAGES OF THE SARAMANG AND MERCATOR. 495 
 
 Harbor of Nagasaki. As she approached she was surrounded by 
 numerous guard-boats, from one of which a letter was handed, in 
 Dutch and French, 'directing her to anchor off the entrance, (all 
 visited by the authorities. The Japanese officers who came on 
 board, stated that they had been apprized of this intended visit by 
 the Dutch, and that they were acquainted with the recent visit of 
 the Saramang to the Lew Chew and other islands, and of her oper- 
 ations there. 
 
 "With great difficulty permission was obtained to land, in order 
 to make some astronomical observations, but the officers earnestly 
 begged that this might not be repeated till they could consult their 
 superiors ; nor were they willing that the vessel should leave till such 
 consultation had taken place. They asked, for this purpose, a stay 
 of two days. The captain offered to wait four days, if they would 
 allow his observations to be continued; but this they declined, urg- 
 ing, as a reason, their own danger of punishment. The vessel was 
 freely supplied with such provisions as she needed, and the British 
 officers were strongly impressed with the demeanor of the Japanese, 
 as at once dignified and respectful. 
 
 That same year, the American whale-ship Mercator, Captain 
 Cooper, while cruising among the northern islands of the Japanese 
 group, fell in with a sinking junk, from which she took eleven 
 Japanese sailors, and as many more from a. rock, to which they had 
 escaped. Captain Cooper proceeded with these rescued men to the 
 bay of Jeclo, and, on anchoring there, was surrounded by near four 
 hundred armed boats, which took the ship in tow, took all the arms 
 out of her, and carried her in front of a neighboring town, probably 
 Odawara. Here she was guarded for three days, being all the 
 while an object of curiosity to great crowds. Orders presently 
 came from Jedo, in these words : — 
 
 " I am informed, by the mouths of some shipwrecked persons of our coun- 
 try, that they have been brought home by your ship, and that they have 
 been well treated. But, according to our laws, they must not be brought 
 home, except by the Chinese or Dutch. Nevertheless, in the present case, 
 we shall make an exception, because the return of these men by you must be 
 attributed tc your ignorance of these laws. In future, Japanese subjects 
 will not be received in like circumstances, and will have to be treated rigor- 
 ously when returned. You are hereby advised of this,, and that you must 
 make it known to others. 
 
496 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1850. 
 
 " As, in consequence of your long voyage, provisions, and wood and water 
 are wanting on board your ship, we have regard to your request, and what- 
 ever you want will be given to you. 
 
 "As soon as possible after the reception of this order, the ship must depart 
 and return directly to her own country. ' ' 
 
 Immediately upon the receipt of this order, the ship was abun- 
 dantly supplied with provisions, her arms were returned, and she 
 was towed out of the bay by a file of boats more than a mile long. 
 It would seem that since the visit of the Morrison, a fleet of guard- 
 boats had been provided to take the bay of Jedo in charge. 
 
 Commodore Biddle, sent soon after to the China Seas, with 
 a considerable American naval force, was instructed, among 
 other things, to ascertain if the ports of Japan were accessible. 
 With this object in view, with the Columbus ship of the line, and 
 Vincennes frigate, he anchored (July 20th, 1848) in the bay of 
 Jedo. Before the ships reached their anchorage, an officer with a 
 Dutch interpreter came on board to inquire their object. He was 
 told that the vessels came as friends to ascertain whether Japan 
 had, like China, opened her ports to foreign trade ; and, if she had, 
 to negotiate a treaty of commerce. The officer requested that this 
 statement should be reduced to writing, for transmission to the 
 higher authorities. He also stated that all needed supplies would 
 be furnished, but refused permission to land, arid even wished to 
 stop the passing of boats between the two vessels ; but, as the com- 
 modore would not agree to this, he did not persist in it. The vessel 
 was soon surrounded by a multitude of boats, and as many Japanese 
 as wished were allowed to come on board, both as a proof of friend- 
 ship and to let them see the strength of the ships. 
 
 Another officer, apparently of higher rank, came on board the 
 following morning. He stated that foreign ships, on arriving in 
 Japan, were required to give up their arms ; but when told that 
 only trading vessels could be expected to do that, he appeared to 
 be satisfied. The emperor's reply might be expected, he said, in 
 five or six days. He was offered copies in Chinese of the late Eng- 
 lish, French and American treaties with China, but declined to re- 
 ceive them, as did all the other Japanese officers to whom they were 
 offered. To explain the concourse of guard-boats about the ship, he 
 pretended that they were only waiting in readiness to tow the ships 
 
BIDDLE IN THE BAY OF JEDO. 497 
 
 If needed. These boats followed the ships' boats when sent at some 
 distance for sounding, but did not offer to molest them, nor did the 
 crews of the ship's boats make any attempt to land. 
 
 The Japanese, who had undertaken to water the ships, sent off the 
 first day less than two hundred gallons, and the next day not so much. 
 As this was less than the daily consumption, the commodore stated 
 that if they went on so; he should send his own boats. This was 
 by no means acceptable, and in the two next days they furnished 
 twenty-one thousand gallons. 
 
 On the 28th, an officer with a suite of eight persons came on 
 board with the emperor's letter, which, as translated by the Dutch 
 interpreter, read thus : 
 
 " According to the Japanese laws, the Japanese may not trade except with 
 the Dutch and Chinese. It will not be allowed that America make a treaty 
 with Japan or trade with her, as the same is not allowed with any other 
 nation. Concerning strange lands all things are fixed at Nagasaki, but 
 not here in the bay ; therefore, you must depart as quick as possible, and 
 not come any more to Japan." 
 
 The Japanese original, as translated at Canton, first into Chinese 
 and from Chinese into English, runs as follows : 
 
 "The object of this communication is to explain the reasons why we re- 
 fuse to trade with foreigners who come to this country across the ocean for 
 that purpose. 
 
 " This has been the habit of our nation from time immemorial. In all 
 cases of a similar kind that have occurred we have positively refused to 
 trade. Foreigners have come to us from various quarters, but have always 
 been received in the same way. In taking this course with regard to you, 
 we only pursue our accustomed policy. We can make no distinction between 
 different foreign nations — we treat them all alike, and you as Americans 
 must receive the same answer with the rest. It will be of no use to renew 
 the attempt, as all applications of the kind, howeven numerous they may be, 
 will be steadily rejected. 
 
 " We are aware that our customs are in this respect different from those 
 of some other countries, but every nation has a right to manage its affairs in 
 its own way. 
 
 " The trade carried on with the Dutch at Nagasaki is not to be regarded 
 us furnishing a precedent for trade with other foreign nations. The place is 
 one of few inhabitants and .very little business, and the whole affair is of no 
 importance. 
 
 42* 
 
498 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1850. 
 
 " In conclusion, we have to say that the emperor positively refuses th« 
 permission you desire. He earnestly advises you to depart immediately, 
 and to consult your own safety in not appearing again upon our coast." 
 
 This paper, which had neither address, signature nor date, was 
 enclosed in an open envelope, on which was written, " Explanatory 
 Edict." With respect to the delivery of it, the following circum- 
 stance occurred, which will best be stated in the words of the com- 
 modore's despatch : 
 
 " I must now communicate an occurrence of an unpleasant char- 
 acter. On the morning that the officer came down in the junk with 
 the emperor's letter, I was requested to go on board the junk to 
 receive it. I refused, and informed the interpreter that the officer 
 must deliver on board this ship any letter that had been entrusted 
 him for me. To this the officer assented ; but added, that my letter 
 having been delivered on board the American ship, he thought the 
 emperor's letter should be delivered on board the Japanese vessel. 
 As the Japanese officer, though attaching importance to his own 
 proposal, had withdrawn it as soon as I objected to it, I concluded 
 that it might be well for me to gratify him, and I informed the 
 interpreter that I would go on board the junk, and there receive 
 the letter. The interpreter then went on board the junk, and in an 
 hour afterwards I went alongside in the ship's boat, in my uniform. 
 At the moment that I was stepping on board, a Japanese on the 
 deck of the junk gave me a blow or push, which threw me back 
 into the boat. I immediately called to the interpreter to have the 
 man seized, and then returned to the ship." The interpreter and a 
 number of Japanese followed, who expressed great concern at what 
 had happened, and who succeeded in convincing the commodore 
 that his intention of coming on board had not been understood. 
 They offered to inflict any punishment he chose on the offender ; 
 but as to that matter, he referred them to the laws of Japan ; and 
 being satisfied that it was an individual act, without authority 
 from the officers, he concluded to be satisfied.* What interpre- 
 
 * His instructions cautioned him not to do anything " to excite a hostile 
 feeling, or distrust of the United States." The official papers relating to 
 this expedition, and to the subsequent one of the Preble, will be found in 
 Senate Documents, 1851 — 1852, vol. ix. [Ex. Doc. No. 59.] 
 
CAPTIVE SEAMEN. 499 
 
 nation was put upon his conduct by the Japanese will presently 
 appear. 
 
 At the' very moment that these ships were thus unceremoniously 
 sent away, eight American sailors were imprisoned in Japan, though 
 possibly the fact was not then known at Jedo. They had escaped 
 from the wreck of the whale-ship Lawrence, to onk of the Japanese 
 Kuriles, where they had landed early in June. After an imprison- 
 ment of several months, they were taken to Matsmai, and finally to 
 Nagasaki. One of them, in an attempt to escape, was killed. At 
 last, after seventeen months' confinement, they were given up to the 
 Dutch at Desima, and sent to Batavia in the ship of 1847. Ac- 
 cording to an account signed by the mate, and published in the 
 Serampore Free Press, their usage had been very hard. 
 
 On the 28th of July, the day preceding the departure of the two 
 American ships from the bay of Jedo, two French ships of war, the 
 frigate Cleopatra, commanded by Admiral Cecille, and a corvette, 
 on a surveying expedition, entered the harbor of Nagasaki, for 
 the purpose, as the admiral stated, of letting the Japanese know 
 that the French, too, had great ships of war ; but being surrounded 
 by boats and refused all intercourse with the shore, they departed 
 within twenty-four hours. In consequence of these visits the Dutch 
 at length communicated to the French and American governments, 
 copies of the edict of 1843, concerning the return of shipwrecked 
 Japanese, and surveys of the Japanese coast, already given. 
 
 In September, 1848, fifteen foreign seamen arrived at Nagasaki, 
 forwarded from Matsmai in a Japanese junk, from which they were 
 carried in close kang'os to a temple prepared for their residence, and 
 iround which a high palisade was erected, no communication with 
 them being allowed. Indeed, it was not without a good deal of 
 difficulty that the director of the Dutch factory obtained leave to 
 send them some articles of food and clothing. As none of the 
 sailors understood Dutch, the Japanese officers who had them in 
 charge found it difficult to communicate with them, — to aid in 
 which, the Dutch director was finally called in. Eight of the men, 
 according to their own account, were Americans, all quite young, 
 and seven of them Sandwich-Islanders. They stated themselves to 
 have escaped from the wreck of the American whaler, Ladoga 
 which, according to their account, had struck a shoai in the Sea of 
 
500 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1850. 
 
 Japan, and gone to pieces. The director wished to send them to 
 Batavia in the annual Dutch vessel, then about to sail, but for this 
 a reference to Jedo was necessary, which would take forty da^s, 
 much beyond the time fixed by the Japanese rule for the departure 
 of the ship. 
 
 These facts having been communicated, under date of Jan. 27, 
 1849, by the Dutch consul at Canton to the American commissioner 
 there, Captain Geisenger, in command on that station, despatched 
 the sloop-of-war Preble, Commander Glyn, to Nagasaki, to bring 
 away these sailors. 
 
 Glyn touched at Lew Chew, where he learned from the Rev. B. 
 J. Bettelheim * a missionary resident there, that very exaggerated 
 reports had reached these islands of chastisement inflicted upon an 
 American officer who had visited Jedo in a " big " ship. The mis- 
 sionary seemed even to think that these reports were not without 
 their influence upon the authorities of Lew Chew, as the cause of a 
 " want of accommodation " exhibited in their conduct towards the 
 Preble, — a piece of information which had its influence in lead- 
 ing Captain Glyn to assume a very decided tone in his subsequent 
 intercourse with the" authorities of Nagasaki. 
 
 The Preble made the land off Nagasaki on the 17th of April. 
 Japanese boats, which soon came alongside, threw on board a bam- 
 boo, in the split of which were papers containing the customary 
 notifications to foreign vessels, as to their anchorage, and the con 
 duct they were to observe, and certain questions which they were 
 to answer. These papers (in English, with some Dutch variations) 
 were verbatim as follows : 
 
 * Dr. Bettelheim is at this moment in this country, anxious to be employed 
 as a missionary to Japan, for which his experience, derived from a nine 
 years' residence in Lew Chew, gives him peculiar qualifications. His treat- 
 ment there was characteristic. The authorities were anxious to get rid of 
 him, but afraid to send him away by force, while he was determined not to 
 go. The inhabitants were ordered to keep away from his house, to sell him 
 nothing beyond a supply of food, and to avoid him whenever he came near ; 
 while officers were appointed to watch and to follow him wherever he went. 
 See Glyn'-s Letter in Senate Documents, 1851 — 1852, vol. ix., No. 59. There 
 are also two curious pamphlets on the subject, written by Dr. Bettelheim, 
 and printed at Canton. 
 
NOTIFICATIONS TO FOREIGN SHIPS. 50} 
 
 1. Warning to respective commanders, their officers and crew of the 
 vessels approaching the coast of Japan, or anchoring near the coast in the 
 bays of the empire. — During the time foreign vessels are on the coast of 
 Japan, or near, as well as in the bay of Nagasaky, it is expected and like- 
 wise ordered, that every one of the schip's company "will behave properly 
 towards and accost civillen the Japanese subjects in general. No one may 
 leave the vessle, or use her boats for cruising or landing on the islands or on 
 the main coast, and ought to remain on board until further advice from the 
 Japanese government has been received. It is likewise forbidden to fire 
 guns, or use other fire-arms on board the vessle, as well as in their boats. 
 Very disagreeable consequences might result in case the aforesaid schould 
 not be strictly observed. [Signed] , The Governor of Nagasaki. 
 
 2. To the commanders of vessels approaching this empire under Dutch 
 or other colors. — By express orders of the governor of Nagasaki, you are 
 requested, as soon as you have arrived near the northern Cavallos, to anchor 
 there at a safe place, and to remain until you will have received further 
 advice. Very disagreeable consequences might result in case this order 
 should not be strictly observed. Desima. [Signed.] The Reporters attached 
 to the Superintendent's office. [Seal.] Translated by the Superintendent 
 of the Netherlands' trade in Japan. [Qu. chief interpreter ?] 
 
 3. [This is addressed like No. 2, and contains the same orders about an- 
 chorage. It then proceeds as follows :] " Please to answer, as distinctly 
 and as soon as possible, the following questions : What is the name of your 
 vessel ? What her tonnage ? What is the number of her crew ? Where do 
 you come from ? What is the date of your departure ? Have you any 
 wrecked Japanese on board ? Have you anything to ask for, as water, fire- 
 wood, &c. &c. ? Are any more vessels in company with you bound for this 
 empire ? By order of the governor of Nagasaki. Translated by the Super- 
 intendent of the Netherlands' trade in Japan. Desima. 
 
 * UrPER Reporter. [Seal.] 
 Under Reporter. [Seal.] 
 
 The ship was soon after boarded by a Japanese interpreter with 
 seven men, who gave directions in English as to her anchorage ; 
 but, as the captain persisted in selecting his own ground, the officer 
 yielded. To another officer, who came on board to learn what he 
 wanted, he stated his object, which led to many inquiries. The 
 vessel was surrounded by guard-boats, and the usual offer was 
 made of supplies, which were refused unless payment would be ac- 
 cepted. To an officer who came on board the next day, Captain 
 
 * The same officers probably, designated by Kampfer as deputies of the 
 governor, called by Thunberg banjos, and by the more recent Dutch writers 
 gobanjosi. 
 
502 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1850. 
 
 Glyn complained of these guard-boats ; and he gave him also a 
 letter to the governor of Nagasaki, stating his object. The same 
 officer having returned on the 22d, but only with promises of a 
 speedy answer, Captain Glyn remonstrated with warmth. Finally, 
 on the 26th, through the intervention of the Dutch director, who, 
 being sick himself, sent one of his subordinates on board, the 
 sailors were delivered up without waiting to send to Jedo, as 
 had been proposed. The day before, a curious memorandum in 
 Japanese Dutch, a sort of journal or history of the prisoners since 
 their capture, was handed to the captain, who was very hard-pressed 
 to say whether he would sail as soon as he received them. Another 
 memorandum in Dutch was also handed to him, to the effect, that as 
 all shipwrecked mariners were sent home by the Chinese or Dutch, 
 this special sending for them was not to be allowed. 
 
 It appears, from the statements of the men, that they were, in 
 fact, deserters, having left the Ladoga near the Straits of Sangar. 
 At a village on the coast of Jeso, where they landed, they were 
 supplied with rice and firewood, but while they staid were guarded 
 by soldiers, and surrounded by a cloth screen, as if to keep them 
 from seeing the country. Landing two days after at another vil-. 
 lage, they were detained as prisoners, and were confined in a house 
 guarded by soldiers ; but for some time were amused by promises 
 that they should be released and furnished with a boat. Disap- 
 pointed in this expectation, two of them escaped, but were speedily 
 recaptured. A quarrel taking place between them, one of them 
 was shut up in a cage, and two others, having made a second escape, 
 after being retaken were shut up with him. A new quarrel happen- 
 ing in the cage, one of the prisoners was taken out and severely 
 whipped. Two months after their capture, the whole number were 
 put in a junk, the three close prisoners in one cage, the twelve 
 others in another, and forwarded to Nagasaki. They were lodged 
 at first in a palisaded and guarded house, and were subjected to 
 several interrogations, being flattered with hopes, of being sent home 
 in the Dutch vessel then in the harbor. In order to get -on board 
 her, McCoy (who described himself as twenty ; three years old, and 
 born in Philadelphia, and who appears to have been the most intel- 
 ligent of the party) made a third escape. Japanese jails, he ob 
 served, migl t do wel) c nough for Japanese, but could not hold 
 
 /\ 
 
AMERICAN PRISONERS. 503 
 
 Americans. Being retaken, he was tied, — muck as described in 
 Golownin's narrative, — put into a sort of stocks, and repeatedly 
 examined under suspicion of being a spy. Thence he was taken to 
 the common prison and confined by himself for three weeks ; but, on 
 threatening to starve himself, and refusing to eat for three days, he 
 was restored to his companions, it would seem, through the inter- 
 cession of the Dutch director, who endeavored to persuade the men 
 to wait patiently, and not to quarrel among themselves. 
 
 After a month's longer detention, a new escape was planned, but 
 only McCoy and two others succeeded in getting out. Being retaken 
 they were tied, put in the stocks, and finally all were sent to the 
 common prison, where . they had very hard usage. It was stated, 
 and no doubt truly enough, in the Dutch memorandum, respecting 
 their treatment, handed in by the Japanese, that they gave so much 
 trouble that the authorities hardly knew what to do with them. 
 One of the Americans died, and one of the Sandwich-Islanders 
 hung himself. McCoy, who had learned considerable Japanese, was 
 secretly informed of the arrival of the Preble by one of 'the guards 
 with whom he had established an intimacy. 
 
 At the same time with these men another seaman from an 
 American whaler was delivered up, who had landed a month or 
 two later on some still more northerly Japanese island. As this 
 man, named McDonald, and who described himself as twenty-four 
 years old, and born at Astoria, in Oregon, had made no attempt at 
 escaping, he had no occasion to complain of severity. In fact, he 
 lived in clover, the Japanese having put him to use as a teacher 
 of English. The very interpreter who boarded the Preble had 
 been one of his scholars. All these men stated that they had been 
 required to trample on the crucifix as a proof *that they were not 
 Portuguese, that reason being suggested to them when they showed 
 some reluctance to do it. 
 
 McCoy mentioned, and others confirmed it, that when he threat- 
 ened the Japanese guards with vengeance from some American 
 ship of war, they told him that they had no fears of that, as the 
 year before, at the city of Jedo, a common soldier had knocked 
 down an American commander, and no notice had been taken of 
 it. McCoy and the others strenuously denied having ever heard 
 this story (ev'dently referring to the occurrence described in a pre- 
 
504 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1850. 
 
 ceding page) before it was thus mentioned to them by the Jap- 
 anese. 
 
 McDonald, before his release, was requested bj the Japanese to 
 describe the relative rank of the commander of the Preble, by count- 
 ing down in the order of succession from the highest chief in the 
 United States. Like a true republican, he began with the people ; 
 but the Japanese, he says, could make nothing of that. He then 
 enumerated the grades of president, secretary of the navy, commo- 
 dore, post captain and commander, which latter rank, -being that of 
 the officer in question, seemed so elevated as rather to excite the 
 surprise of his auditors. 
 
 Five weeks after the departure of the Preble, on the 29th of 
 May, Commander Matheson, in the British surveying ship Mariner, 
 anchored in the bay of Jedo, off the town of Uragawa, and three 
 miles higher up, according to his statement, than any other vessel 
 had been allowed to proceed. As he entered the bay, he was met 
 by ten boats. A paper was handed up, in Dutch and French, re- 
 questing him not to anchor, nor cruise in the bay ; but when the 
 Japanese found he was determined to proceed, they offered to tow 
 him. During the night he was watched by boats and from the 
 shore. Having a Japanese interpreter on board, he communicated 
 the object of his visit, and sent his card on shore to the governor 
 of the town, with a note in Chinese, proposing to wait upon him ; 
 to which the governor replied, that it was contrary to the law for 
 foreigners to land, and that he should lose his life if he allowed 
 Captain Matheson to come on shore, or to proceed any higher up 
 the bay. 
 
 The survey of the anchorage having been completed, Matheson 
 proceeded, on the 31st, to the bay of Samoda, on the other side of 
 the promontory of Idsu, where he spent five days in surveying, and 
 was detained two days longer by the weather. After the second 
 day, he was visited by an interpreter, who understood Dutch, and 
 \>y two officers from Urawaga, apparently spies on each other, to 
 watch his proceedings ; and finally an officer of rank, from a town 
 thirteen miles off, came on board. There were three fishing villages 
 at the anchorage, and he landed for a short time, but the Japanese 
 officers followed, begging and entreating him to go on board again. 
 
EXCLUSIVE POLICY ADHERED TO. 505 
 
 The ship was supplied with plenty of fisn, and boats were furnished 
 to tow her out. 
 
 In 1850, the Japanese sent to Batavia, in the annual Dutch ship, 
 three American sailors who had been left in 1848 on one of the 
 Kurile Islands, also thirty-one other sailors belonging to the Eng- 
 lish whaling-ship Edmund, of Robertstown, wrecked on the coast 
 of Jeso. At the same time, probably in consequence of the numer- 
 ous recent visits to their coasts, the Dutch were requested to give 
 notice to other nations, that although it had been determined, in 
 1842, to furnish with necessary supplies such foreign vessels as 
 arrived on the coast in distress, this was not to be understood as 
 indicating the least change as to the policy of the rigorous exclusion 
 of foreigners. 
 
 43 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 FOREIGN RELATIONS — NEW SIOGTTN. — DUTCH TRADE. — CHINESE TRADE. - — 
 AMERICAN EMBASSY. ITS - OBJECT. LETTER TO THE EMPEROR. — PER- 
 RY'S FIRST VISIT TO THE BAY OP JEDO. • — DEATH OF THE SIOGUN. 
 
 PERRY'S SECOND VISIT TO THE BAY OF JEDO. NEGOTIATION OF A 
 
 TREATY. THE TREATY AS AGREED TO. SIMODA. HAKODADE. — ADDI- 
 TIONAL REGULATIONS. JAPANESE CURRENCY. BURROW'S VISIT TO THE 
 
 BAY OF JEDO. THIRD VISIT OF THE AMERICAN STEAMERS. RUSSIAN AND 
 
 ENGLISH NEGOTIATIONS. — EXCHANGE OF RATIFICATIONS. EARTHQUAKE. 
 
 We have seen in the last chapter how the whale fishery, on the 
 one hand, and the opening of China to foreign trade, on the other, 
 had more and more drawn attention to Japan ; in the conduct of 
 whose functionaries, however, no indication appeared of any dispo- 
 sition to abandon their ancient exclusive policy. It has even been 
 asserted* that a new Siogun, who had succeeded in 1842 (after a 
 fifty-five years' reign on the part of his predecessor), had imposed new 
 restrictions on foreign products, and, by special encouragement to 
 home productions -of similar kinds, had endeavored to supersede the 
 necessity of receiving anything from abroad? It is certain that the 
 Dutch trade rather diminished than increased. The amount of 
 that trade, from 1825 to 1833, inclusive, is stated by Jancigny, 
 from official returns, or those reputed to be such, at 289,150 florins 
 ($115,620) for importations, and 702,695 florins ($281,078) for. 
 exportations. In 1846, the importations reached only 231,117 fr. 
 ($92,446), and the exportations 552,319 fr. ($220,927) ; and those 
 of the preceding year had been about the same. The private trade, 
 and the attempts at smuggling connected with it, were very nar- 
 rowly watched. Within the preceding ten years, one interpreter 
 
 * By Siebold, in Moniteur des Indes, vol. n., p. 346, in his " Essay on the 
 Commerce of Japan." 
 
DUTCH AND CHINESE TRADE. 50 1 
 
 had been executed, and another had been driven to cut himself 
 open, in consequence of complicity in smuggling. The private 
 trade had been farmed out, for the benefit of those interested in it, 
 at 30,000 fl. ($12,000) annually — the amount at which Kamp- 
 fer had reckoned the profits from that source of the director alone. 
 Among the Dutch imports upon government account, woollens, silks, 
 velvets, cotton goods, gold, silver, tin, lead, mercury, and a few 
 other articles, are mentioned. Sugar, formerly a leading article, no 
 longer appears on the list. The returns continued to be exclusively 
 in camphor and copper, the latter furnished by the Japanese gov- 
 ernment at the old rates, much below the current price, by which 
 advantage alone was the Dutch trade sustained. Among the pri- 
 vate importations were spices, chemicals, and a great variety of 
 Paris trinkets, for which various Japanese manufactures and prod 
 ucts were taken in exchange. 
 
 The Chinese trade had declined not less than that of the Dutch. 
 The ten junks a year, to which it was now restricted, all came from 
 Sha-po (not far from Chusan), half of them in January and the 
 other half in August — their cargoes, which include a great Tyariety 
 of articles, being partly furnished by private merchants who, come 
 over in them, but chiefly by a commercial company at Sha-po, for 
 whom the captains of the junks act as supercargoes. Except as to 
 some trifling articles, this trade seems, like that of the Dutch, to be 
 pretty much in the hands of the government, whp, or some privileged 
 company under them, purchase the imports and furnish a return 
 cargo to each junk, two fifths in copper and the remainder in other 
 articles. The Chinese, however, still continued to be allowed much 
 more liberty than tjie Dutch of personal intercourse with the inhab- 
 itants of Nagasaki. 
 
 The settlement of California, the new trade opened thence with 
 China, and the idea of steam communication across the Pacific, for 
 which the coal of Japan might be needed, combined with the exten- 
 sion of the whale fishery in the Northern Japanese seas to increase 
 the desire in America for access to the ports of Japan. Shortly 
 after the visit of the Preble, the American government resolved to 
 send an envoy thither, backed by such a naval force, as would 
 ensure him a resp'ectful hearing — the cases of Biddle and Glynr 
 seeming to prove that the humoring policy could not be relied upon 
 
508 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 and that the only way to deal successfully with the Japanese was 
 to show a resolution not to take no for an answer. 
 
 Accordingly, Mr. Webster, as Secretary of State, prepared a let- 
 ter from the President to the Emperor of Japan ; also a letter of 
 instructions to the American naval commander in the China 
 seas, to whom it was resdlved to entrust the duty of envoy, and 
 whose force was to be strengthened by additional ships. The sail- 
 ing, however, of these ships was delayed till after Mr. Webster's 
 death; and in the mean time Commodore Matthew C. Perry was 
 selected as the head of the expedition. A new letter* dated Nov. 
 5, 1852, addressed from the State Department to the Secretary of 
 the Navy, thus denned its objects : 
 
 " 1. To effect some permanent arrangement for the protection of 
 American seamen and property wrecked on these islands, or driven 
 into their ports by stress of weather. 
 
 " 2. The permission to American vessels to enter one or more 
 of their ports, in order to obtain supplies of provisions, water, fuel, 
 &c. ; or, in case of disasters, to refit so as to enable them to prose- 
 cute their voyage. It is very desirable to have permission to estab- 
 lish a depot for coal, if not on one of the principal islands, at 
 least on some small, uninhabited one, of which it is said there 
 are several in their vicinity. 
 
 "3. The permission to our vessels to enter one or more of their 
 ports for the purpose of disposing of their cargoes by sale or 
 barter." 
 
 Jhe mission was to be of a pacific character, as the president 
 had no power to declare war ; yet the show of force was 
 evidently relied upon, as more likely than anything else to weigh 
 with the Japanese. The Dutch government, it was stated, had in- 
 structed their agents at Desima to do all they could to promote the 
 success of the expedition. Indeed, if we may believe Jancigny,t 
 who speaks from information obtained during a residence at Bata- 
 
 * The official documents relating to this expedition were printed by order of 
 U. S. Senate, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. Ex. Doc. No. 34. 
 
 t Japan, p. 197. Perry, to judge by his letters (Dec. 14, 1852, May 6, 
 1853), did not place much reliance on the aid of the Dutch. The British 
 Admiralty showed their good will by furnishing the latest charts and sailing 
 rlireotions for the Eastern seas. 
 
AMERICAN LETTER TO THE EMPEROR. 50^ 
 
 via in 1844-45, the King of Holland had, as long ago as that time 
 addressed a letter to the Emperor of Japan, urging Kim to abandon 
 the policy of exclusion. The letter of instructions disavowed any 
 wish to obtain exclusive privileges ; but, as a matter of policy, 
 nothing was to be said about other nations. 
 
 A new letter to the Emperor of Japan was also prepared in the 
 following terms : 
 
 "Millard Fillmore, President op the United States or America, to 
 his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor op Japan. 
 
 " Great and Good Friend : 
 
 " I send you this public letter by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, au officer 
 of the highest rank in the navy of the United States, and commander of the 
 squadron now visiting your imperial majesty's dominions. 
 
 " I have directed Commodore Perry to assure your imperial majesty that 
 I entertain the kindest feelings towards your majesty's person and govern- 
 ment, and that I have no other object in sending him to japan but to 
 propose to your imperial majesty that the United States and Japan should 
 live in friendship and have commercial intercourse with each other. 
 
 ** The constitution and laws of the United States forbid all interference- 
 with the religious or political concerns of other nations. I have particularly 
 charged Commodore Perry to abstain from every act which could possibly 
 disturb the*tranquillity of your imperial majesty's dominions. 
 
 " The United States of America reach from ocean to ocean, and our Terri- 
 tory of Oregon and State of California lie directly opposite to the dominions 
 of your imperial majesty. Our steamships can go from California to Japan 
 in eighteen days. 
 
 "Our great state of California produces about sixty millions of dollars in 
 gold every year, besides silver, quicksilver, precious stones, arid many other 
 valuable articles. Japan is also a rich and fertile country, and produces 
 many very valuable articles. Your imperial majesty's subjects are skilled 
 in many of the arts. I am desirous that our two countries should trade with 
 each other, for the benefit both of Japan and the. United States. 
 
 " We know that the ancient laws of your imperial majesty's government 
 do not allow of foreign trade except with the Chinese and the Dutch ; but, 
 as the state of the world changes, and new governments are formed, it seems 
 to be wise, from time to time, to make new laws. There was a time when 
 the ancient laws of your imperial majesty's government were first made. 
 
 " About the same time America, which is sometimes called the New World, 
 was first discovered and settled by the Europeans. For along time there were 
 but a few people, and they were poor. They have now become quite numer- 
 ous ; their commerce is very extensive ; and they "think that if your impe- 
 rial majesty were so far to change the*ancient laws as to allow a free trade 
 between the two countries, it would be extremely beneficial to both. 
 
 43* 
 
510 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 " If your imperial majesty is not satisfied that it would be safe altogether 
 to abrogate the ancient laws, which forbid foreign trade,, they might be sus- 
 pended for five or ten years, so as to try the experiment. If it does not prove 
 as beneficial as was hoped, the ancient laws can be restored. The United 
 States often limit their treaties with foreign states to a few years, and then 
 renew them or not, as they please. 
 
 " I have directed Commodore Perry to mention another thing to your im 
 perial majesty. Many of our ships pass every year from California to China ; 
 and great numbers of our people pursue the whale fishery near the shores of 
 Japan. It sometimes happens, in stormy weather, that one of our ships is 
 wrecked on your imperial majesty's shores. In all such cases we ask, and 
 expect, that our unfortunate people should be treated with kindness, and that 
 their property should be protected, till we can send a vessel and bring them 
 away. We are very much in earnest in this. 
 
 " Commodore Perry is also directed by me to represent to your imperial 
 majesty that we understand there is a great abundance of coal and provis- 
 ions in the empire of Japan. Our steamships, in crossing the great ocean, 
 burn a great deal of coal, and it is not convenient to bring it all the way 
 f^om America. We wish that our steamships and other vessels should be 
 allowed to stop at Japan and supply themselves with coal, provisions and 
 water. They will pay for them in money, or anything else your imperial 
 majesty's subjects may prefer ; and we request your imperial majesty to 
 appoint a convenient port, in the southern part of the empire, where our 
 vessels may stop for this purpose. We are very desirous of this. • 
 
 " These are the only objects for whichT have sent Commodore Perry, with 
 a^powerful squadron, to pay a visit to your imperial majesty's renowned 
 city of Yedo : friendship, commerce, a supply of coal and provisions, and 
 protection for our shipwrecked people. 
 
 " We have directed Commodore Perry to beg your imperial majesty's ac 
 ceptance of a few presents. They are of no great value in themselves ; but 
 some of them may serve as specimens of the articles manufactured in the 
 United States, and they are intended as tokens of our sincere and respectful 
 friendship. 
 
 " May the Almighty have your imperial majesty in his great and holy 
 keeping ! 
 
 " In witness whereof, I have caused the great seal of the United States to 
 be hereunto affixed, and have subscribed the same with my name, at the 
 city. of Washington, in America, the seat of my government, on the thir- 
 teenth day of the month of November, in the year one thousand eight hun- 
 dred and fifty-two. Your good friend, • 
 
 [Seal attached.] " Millard Fillmore. 
 
 " By the President : Edward Everett, Secretary of State." * 
 
 * As some persons may feel a curiosity to see Mr. Webster's original letter, 
 and as it is not to be found in the edition of Mr. Webster's writings edited by 
 
AMERICAN LETTER TO THE EMPEROR. 51l 
 
 Furnished with these orders, and this letter splendidly en- 
 grossed and enclosed in a gold box of the value of a thousand dol- 
 lars, and provided also with a variety of presents, Commodore Perry, 
 
 Mr. Everett, I have copied it from the Senate Documents, 1851-52, vol. ix. 
 The expansion given to it in the letter actually sent was not according to 
 Japanese taste, which greatly affects brevity. 
 
 " To His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Japan. 
 
 " Great and Good Friend : 
 
 " I send you this letter by an envoy of my own appointment, an officer of 
 high rank in this country, who is no missionary of religion. He goes by my 
 command to bear to you my greeting and good wishes, and to promote friend- 
 ship and commerce between the two countries. 
 
 " You know that the United States of America now extend from sea to 
 sea ; that the great countries of Oregon and California are parts of the United 
 States, and that from these countries, which are rich in gold, and silver, and 
 precious stones, our steamers can reach the shores of your happy land in less 
 than twenty days. - 
 
 " Many of our ships will now pass in every year, and some perhaps in 
 every week, between California and China. These ships must pass along 
 the coast of your empire ; storms and winds may cause them to be wrecked 
 on your shores, and we a§k and expect from your friendship and your great- 
 ness, kindness for our men and protection for our property. We wish that 
 our people may be permitted to trade with your people ; but we shall not 
 authorize them to break any laws of your empire. 
 
 " Our object is friendly commercial intercourse, and nothing more. You 
 have many productions which we should be glad to buy ; and we have pro- 
 ductions which might suit your people. 
 
 " Your empire has a great abundance of coal ; this is an article which our 
 steamships, in going from California to China, must use. They would be 
 glad that a harbor in your empire should be appointed to which coal might 
 be brought, and where they might always be able to purchase it. 
 
 " In many other respects, commerce between your empire and our country 
 wouW. be useful to both. Let us consider well what new interests arise from 
 these recent events which have brought our two countries so near together, 
 and what purposes of friendship, amity and intercourse, they ought to 
 inspire in the breasts of those who govern both countries. Farewell. 
 
 " Given under my hand and seal, at the city of Washington, the 10th day 
 r 1 of May, 1851, and of the independence of the United States the 
 
 seventy-fifth. 
 
 "M. Fillmore. 
 
 " By the President : 
 
 " D. Webster, Secretary of Slate.'" 
 
512 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 towards the end of 1852, sailed from the United States in the ite-am-- 
 frigate Mississippi, and, after touching at Madeira and the Capa 
 of Good Hope, arrived at Hong Kong in April, 1853, whence he 
 proceeded to Shanghai. The dispersion of the vessels of the squad- 
 ron, delay in the arrival of others from the United States, difficulty in 
 obtaining coal, and the claim of the American merchants in China, 
 in consideration of existing civil commotions, to the protecting pres- 
 ence of a naval force, caused some delays. But, at length, after 
 touching at Lew Chew, and making a visit to the Bonin Islands,* 
 Perry, with the steam-frigate Susquehanna, now the flag-ship, the 
 Mississippi, and the sloops-of-war Plymouth and Saratoga, made 
 Cape Idsu about daybreak on the 8th of July. Many rumors had 
 been current on the coast of China of extensive warlike prepara- 
 tions by the Japanese, aided by the Dutch, and the squadron was 
 fully prepared for a hostile reception. Perry had made up his 
 mind, instead of attempting to conciliate by yielding, to stand upon 
 his dignity to the utmost, to allow no petty annoyances, and to 
 demand as a right, instead of soliciting as a favor, the courtesies 
 due from one civilized nation to another. 
 
 The promontory constituting the province of Idsu appeared, as 
 the vessels ran along it, to be a group of high mountains, their sum- 
 mits scarred with slides, and their sides mostly wooded, though 
 
 * These islands lie between 26° 30' and 27° 45' north latitude, about five 
 hundred miles west of Lew Chew and the same distance south of Jedo, on 
 the direct route from the Sandwich Islands to Shanghai, three thousand 
 three hundred miles from the former, and about one thousand one hun- 
 dred from the latter. They consist of three groups. The largest island is 
 about forty miles in circumference. There are nine others, diminishing 
 down to five or six miles of circumference, and about seventy rocky islets, all 
 evidently of volcanic origin. The extent of the whole is about two hundred 
 and fifty square miles. The name is Japanese, and signifies " uninhabited," 
 descriptive of the state in which they were found when discovered by a Jap- 
 anese vessel in 1675 ; and, except some ineffectual attempts at penal colo- 
 nization by the Japanese, so they remained till occupied, in 1830, by a colony 
 from the Sandwich Islands, partly Americans and Europeans, and partly 
 Sandwich-Islanders. They had been visited and claimed for the British 
 crown in 1827, by Captain Beechey, in the surveying ship Blossom. Tn« 
 larger ones are fertile and well watered, but scantily wooded. The largest, 
 called Peel's Islands by Beechey, has a good harbor, and here Perry bought a 
 piece of land from a squatter for a coal depot. 
 
perry's first visit. 51 3 
 
 here and there a cultivated spot could be seen. By noon the ships 
 reached Cape Sagami, which separates the inner from the outer bay 
 of Jedo. The shores of this point rose in abrupt bluffs two hun- 
 dred feet high, with gree*n dells running down to the water-side. 
 Further off were groves and cultivated fields, and mountains in the, 
 distance. 
 
 Leaving behind some twelve or fifteen Japanese boats, which put 
 off from Cape Sagami to intercept them, the vessels stood up 
 through the narrowest part of the bay, not more than five to eight 
 miles wide, but expanding afterwards to fifteen miles, having now 
 also in sight the eastern shore, forming a part of the province of 
 Awa .* 
 
 Within half an hour after passing Cape Sagami, they made 
 another bold promontory from the west, forming a second entrance 
 to the upper bay. In the bight formed by it lay the town of 
 Uragawa, visible from the ships, which, sounding their way, anchored 
 within a mile and a half of the* promontory, — a mile or more in 
 advance of the anchorage ground of the Columbus and Yincennes. 
 
 As the ships dropped their anchors two or three guns or mortars 
 were fired from the second promontory, and four or five boats put 
 off. They were of unpainted wood, very sharp, their greatest 
 breadth well towards the stern, and propelled with great rapidity 
 by tall, athletic rowers, naked, save a cloth about the loins, who 
 shouted lustily as they pulled. In the stern of each boat was a 
 small flag, with three horizontal* stripes, the middle one black, the 
 others white, and about it were four or five well-dressed men with 
 two swords in their girdles. 
 
 Some parley took place before anybody was admitted on board, 
 that favor being refused except to the person highest in authority 
 in the town. The conversation was carried on in Dutch, which the 
 Japanese interpreter spoke very well ; and, from what he said, it 
 was evident that the vessels had been expected. After a long par- 
 ley, in which the high rank of the commodore, and the necessity of 
 his being met by persons of corresponding rank, were very much 
 insisted upon, an ofncer,*reprcscnting himself as second in command 
 at the town in sight, was admitted on board. The commodore, bcw- 
 
 * There'is another province of the same name in the island of Sikokf. That 
 above-mentioned is otherwise called Fusiu. 
 
514 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 ever, declined to see him in person, and turned him over to Mr 
 Contee, the flag lieutenant, who, assisted by the two interpreters — « 
 one for Dutch, the other for Chinese* — had a long interview with 
 him and his interpreter in the cabin. He* was told that the object 
 •of the expedition was to deliver a letter from the President of the 
 United States to the Emperor, and that some high officer must be 
 sent on board to receive it ; also, that the squadron would not sub- 
 mit to be watched and guarded, after the Japanese fashion, but 
 that all the guard-boats must withdraw. The officer, as usual, was 
 very inquisitive. He wanted to know whether the vessels came from 
 Boston, New York, or Washington, how many men they had, &c, 
 &c. ; but these questions he was given to understand were regarded 
 as impertinent. 
 
 Seeing the determination evinced, the Japanese officer, by name 
 Tabroske, returned on shore, taking back his official notifications in 
 French, Dutch and English, addressed to ships arriving on the coast 
 (like those given p. 501), which the lieutenant refused to receive. He 
 was followed by the boats, which, after that, kept at a respectful 
 distance. He came back in about an hour to excuse his superior from 
 receiving the letter addressed to the emperor. He spoke of Nagasaki 
 as the proper place for foreign ships to touch at, and doubted if the let- 
 ter would be answered ; but all this was cut short by the assurance 
 that if his superior did not send for the letter, the ships would pro- 
 ceed still higher up the bay to deliver it themselves ; upon which 
 information, much agitated, he stipulated for permission to return in 
 the morning. As he departed, looking at the long gun in the cabin, 
 he exclaimed, with an interrogative look, " Paixhan ? " showing 
 that the Japanese were not ignorant of the modern improvements 
 in gunnery any more than of American geography. 
 
 It was noticed that, towards night, the boatmen put on their Jap- 
 anese gowns, most of them blue, with white stripes on the sleeves, 
 meeting angular-wise on the shoulders, and with a symbol or 
 badge on the back. Others wore gowns of red - and white stripes, 
 
 * The squadron had, as Chinese interpreter, Mr. S. W. Williams, an Ameri- 
 can, long resident at Macao, one of the editors of the Chinese Repository, and 
 one of the party of the Morrison, to carry back the shipwrecked Japanese, 
 Prom whom he had obtained some knowledge of that language. 
 
perry's first visit. 
 
 with a black lozenge upon the back. A few had broad bamboo hats, 
 like a shallow basin inverted ; but most of them were bareheaded. 
 The officers wore light and beautifully, lackered hats, with a gilded 
 symbol in front. 
 
 Daring the night watch-fires blazed along the coast, and bells 
 were heard sounding the hours. The next morning (Saturday), 
 Koyama Yezaimon, first in command at the town, came on board, 
 and made another attempt to beg off from receiving the letter to the 
 emperor. ■ Finally, he proposed to send to Jedo for permission, and 
 was allowed three days to do it in. 
 
 Meanwhile, surveying parties from the ships ran up the bay a 
 distance of four miles, finding everywhere' from thirty to forty 
 fathoms of water. They sounded round the bight within which 
 the ships lay, keeping about a cable's length from the shore, and 
 finding five fathoms. Yezaimon represented that this survey was 
 against the Japanese laws, but was told that if forbidden by the 
 laws of Japan, it was commanded by the laws of America. On 
 approaching the forts, of which there were five, two apparently of 
 recent construction, the soldiers, armed with matchlocks, came out ; 
 but, as the boats drew near, they retired again. These forts were very 
 feeble, mounting only fourteen guns in the whole, none larger than 
 nine-pounders. Of soldiers, about four hundred were seen, many 
 of them armed with spears. There was also, as usual, a great 
 show of canvas screens ; but, on the whole, the warlike means of 
 the Japanese seemed contemptible. From the town to the end of 
 the promontory, a distance of a mile and a half, was an unbroken 
 line of villages. At least a hundred small craft lay in the harbor 
 The hills behind, some five hundred feet high, were dotted with 
 pines and other trees. In the morning and evening, when the air 
 was clear, mount Fusi might be seen in the west, sixty miles dis- 
 tant. The presence of the American ships did not seem to disturb 
 the coasting trade. Sixty or seventy large junks, besides hundreds 
 of boats and fishing-smacks, daily passed up and down the bay, to 
 and from Jedo. 
 
 On Monday, the 11th, the same surveying party proceeded up 
 the bay some ten miles, followed by the Mississippi. They were 
 constantly met by government boats, the officers on board which 
 urged them by signs to return, but of which they took no notice. 
 
516 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817-1854. 
 
 Deep soundings were everywhere obtained, with a bottom of soft 
 mud. A deep bay was found on the western shore, with good 
 and safe anchoring ground. 
 
 In the evening, Yezaimon returned on board, well pleased, ap- 
 parently, to be able to give information of the probability of good 
 news from Jedo, but rather troubled at the explorations by the 
 boats. The flag lieutenant, with whom, he had his interviews, de- 
 scribes him as " a gentleman, clever, polished, well-informed, a fine, 
 large man, about thirty-four, of most excellent countenance, taking 
 his wine freely, and a boon companion." 
 
 The next day (the 12th) he brought information that the emperor 
 would send down a high officer to receive the letter. No answer 
 would be given immediately, but one would be forwarded through 
 the Dutch or Chinese. This latter proposition the commodore 
 treated as an insult. As, however, if he waited for an answer, ex- 
 cuses might easily be found for protracting his stay in an inconven- 
 ient manner, and at last wearying him out, he agreed to allow 
 time for its preparation, and, to return to receive it. The following 
 Thursday (the 14th) was appointed for the interview with the com- 
 missioners appointed to receive the letter, which was to take place 
 two miles south of the town, at a picturesque spot, on the left side 
 of a narrow valley, extending inland from the head of the bight. 
 Its retired situation, and the facility it afforded for the display of a 
 military force, were probably the motives of its selection. 
 
 At the hour appointed for the meeting, as the two steamers 
 approached the spot, long lines of canvas walls were seen stretching, 
 crescent-wise, quite round the head of the bight, and in front files 
 of soldiers with a multitude of brilliant banners. Near the centre 
 of the crescent were nine tall standards, with broad scarlet pennons, 
 in the rear of which could be seen the roof of the house prepared 
 for the interview. On the right, a line of fifty or sixty boats was 
 drawn up, parallel to the beach, each with a red flag at its stern. 
 
 The foremost files of the Japanese soldiers stood about a hundred 
 yards from the beach, in somewhat loose and straggling order 
 The greater part were behind the canvas screens. There were a 
 number of horses to be seen, and in the background a body of 
 cavalry. The Japanese stated the number of troops at five thou 
 
DELIVERY OF THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER. 517 
 
 sand. On the slope of the hill, near the village, was collected a 
 crowd of spectators, of whom many were women. 
 
 As soon as the steamers dropped their anchors, they were ap- 
 proached by two boats, containing their former visitors, the first 
 and second officers of the town, with the interpreters, very richly 
 dressed in silk brocade, bordered with velvet, and having on their 
 garments of ceremony. The steamers lay with their broadsides to 
 the share, ready for action in case of treachery. Fifteen launches 
 and cutters were got ready, from which three hundred and twenty 
 persons, officers, seamen, marines, and musicians, were landed on 
 an extemporaneous jetty which the Japanese had formed of bags of 
 sand. Last of all the commodore landed with due formality, when 
 the whole body, preceded by the Japanese officers and interpreters, 
 marched to the hous*e of reception, carrying with them the presi- 
 dent's letter, the box which held it wrapped in scarlet cloth, as was 
 also that containing the letter of credence. In front of the houses 
 prepared for the interview were two old brass four-pounders, appar- 
 ently Spanish, and on each side a company of soldiers, those on 
 one side armed with matchlocks, those on the other with old Tower 
 muskets, with flint locks and bayonets. The reception building was 
 a temporary structure, evidently put up for the occasion. The first 
 apartment, about forty feet square, was of Canvas. The floor was 
 covered with white cotton cloth, with a pathway of red felt leading 
 across to a raised inner apartment, wholly carpeted with the same 
 red felt. This apartment, of which the front was entirely open, 
 was hung with fine cloth, stamped with the imperial symbols in 
 white on a ground of violet. On the right was a row of arm-chairs 
 for the commodore and his staff. On the opposite side sat the two 
 commissioners appointed to receive the letters, and who were an- 
 nounced by the interpreters as the princes of Idsu and Iwami. 
 The former was a man about fifty, with a very pleasing and intelli- 
 gent face. The latter was older by fifteen years or so, wrinkled 
 with age, and of looks much less prepossessing. Both were splen- 
 didly dressed, in heavy robes of silk tissue, elaborately ornamented 
 with threads of gold and silver. As the commodore entered, both 
 rose and bowed gravely, but immediately resumed their seats and 
 remained silent and passive as statues. 
 
 At the end of the room was a large scarlet-lackered box, stand- 
 44 
 
518 . JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 ing on gilded feet, beside which Yezaimon and one of the interpre- 
 ters knelt, at the same time signifying that all things were ready 
 for the reception of the letters. They were brought in, and the 
 boxes containing them being opened so as to display the writing and 
 the golden seals, they were placed upon the scarlet box, and along 
 with them translations in Dutch and Chinese, as well as an English 
 transcript. The prince of Iwami then handed to the interpreter, 
 who gave it to the commodore, an official receipt in Japanese, to 
 which the interpreter added a Dutch translation, which translated 
 literally into English was as follows : 
 
 " The letter of the President of the United States of North America, and 
 copy, are hereby received and delivered to the emperor. Many times it has 
 been communicated that business relating to foreign countries cannot be' 
 transacted here in Uragawa, but in Nagasaki. Now, it has been observed 
 that the admiral, in his quality of ambassador of the president, would 
 be insulted by it ; the justice of this has been acknowledged ; consequently 
 the abovementioned letter is hereby received, in opposition to the Japanese 
 law. 
 
 " Because the place is not designed to treat of anything from foreigners, 
 so neither can conference nor entertainment take place. The letter being 
 received, you will leave here." 
 
 The commodore remarked, when this receipt was delivered to him, 
 that he should return again, probably in April or May, for an an- 
 swer. "With all the ships?" asked the interpreter. "Yes, and 
 probably with more," was the reply. Nothing more was said on 
 either side. As the commodore departed, the commissioners rose 
 and remained standing, and so the interview ended, without a single 
 word uttered on their part. 
 
 The Japanese officers of the town, with the Japanese interpreters, 
 accompanied the American party back to the Susquehanna, whose 
 machinery they examined with much interest. When off the town, 
 they were set ashore ; but the steamers, to show how lightly tho 
 injunction to leave was regarded, proceeded up the bay, and anch- 
 ored a short distance above the point reached by the Mississippi. 
 In spite of the solicitude of the Japanese officers, who came again 
 on board, the whole bight between the promontory of Uragawa and 
 another north of it was carefully surveyed. At the head a river 
 was found. The shores were studded with villages, whose inhab- 
 itants offered to the surveying party cold water, and peaches from 
 
perry's second visit. 51$ 
 
 their gardens. To the place where the steamers lay the name was 
 given of " American anchorage." 
 
 The next day (Friday, the 15th), the Mississippi proceeded on 
 an excursion ten miles further up, and reached, as was supposed, 
 within eight or ten miles of the capital. On the western shore 
 were seen two large towns. On the extremity of a cape in front, 
 some four miles distant, stood a tall white tower, like a light-house. 
 Three or four miles beyond was a crowd of shipping, supposed to be 
 the anchorage of Sinagawa, the southern suburb of Jedo. At 
 the point where the steamer put about, she had twenty fathoms of 
 water. On Saturday, the 16th, the vessels moved to a. new anchor- 
 age, five or six miles down the bay, and much nearer the shore, 
 and here the surveying operations were renewed. The same day 
 an. interchange of presents took place with Yezaimon, who, how- 
 ever, was induced to accept those offered to him only by the posi- 
 tive refusal of his own, except on that condition. Thus pressed, he 
 finally took them, except some arms — articles, he said, which the 
 Japanese neither gave nor received. In the afternoon he came 
 again, in excellent humor, his conduct probably having been 
 approved on shore, bringing a quantity of fowls, in light wicker 
 coops, and three or four thousand eggs, in boxes, for which a box 
 of garden-seeds was accepted in return. 
 
 The next day, 17th, and the tenth since their arrival, the vessels 
 weighed and stood for Lew Chew, the bay being covered with 
 boats, to witness their departure.* 
 
 Commodore Perry spent the remainder of the year on the coast 
 t)f China, keeping one vessel, however, at Lew Chew, and prosecut- 
 ing the survey of the Bonin Islands. Shortly after his visit, the 
 Siogun died, and an attempt was made to take advantage of that 
 circumstance to delay or prevent the return of the American ships. 
 A communication, forwarded to Batavia by the Dutch ship that 
 left Nagasaki in November, and communicated by the Dutch gov- 
 ernor-general at Batavia to the commodore, represented that the 
 necessary mourning for the deceased sovereign, and other arrange- 
 ments consequent on his death, as well as the necessity of consulting 
 
 * The account of this visit is drawn partly from Commodore Perry's officia. 
 report, and partly from the letters of Lieutenant Contee and others, pub- 
 lished in the newspapers. 
 
620 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 all the princes, must necessarily delay the answer tc the president's 
 letter, and suggested the danger of confusion, or " broil," should the 
 squadron come back at so unseasonable a moment. 
 
 Undeterred, however, by this representation, on the 12th of Feb- 
 ruary, 1854, Commodore Perry reappeared in the bay of Jedo, 
 with three steam frigates, four sloops-of-war, and two store-ships, 
 and the steamers taking the sailing vessels in tow, they all moved 
 up to the American anchorage. 
 
 About two weeks were spent here in fixing upon a place to 
 negotiate, the Japanese importuning the commodore to go back to 
 Kama Kura, twenty miles below Uragawa, or, at least, to the latter 
 place, while he insisted upon going to Jedo. As he declined to 
 yield, and caused the channel to be sounded out within four miles 
 of Jedo, they proposed, as the place of meeting, the village of Yo- 
 kohama, containing about ten thousand people, and situated. on the 
 shore, just opposite the anchorage of the ships. To this the com- 
 modore agreed, and the ships drew in and moored in line, with 
 broadsides bearing upon the shore, and covering an extent of five miles. 
 
 " On th£ 8th of March," says a letter dated on board the Van- 
 dalia, and published in the New York Journal of Commerce, " the 
 day appointed for the first meeting, about nine hundred officers, 
 seamen and marines, armed to the teeth, landed, and, with drums 
 oeating and colors flying, were drawn up on the beach, ready to 
 receive the commodore. As soon as he stepped on shore the bands 
 struck up, salutes were fired, the marines presented arms, and, fol- 
 lowed by a long escort of officers, he marched up between the lines 
 and entered the house erected by the Japanese expressly for the oc-* 
 casion. Thousands of Japanese soldiers crowded the shore and the 
 neighboring elevations, looking on with a good deal of curiosity and 
 interest. The house was nothing but a plain frame building, hastily 
 put up, containing one large room — the audience hall — and sev- 
 eral smaller, for the convenience of attendants, &c. The floor was 
 covered with mats, and very pretty painted screens adorned the 
 sides. Long tables and benches, covered with red woollen stuff, 
 placed parallel to each other, three handsome braziers, filled with 
 burning charcoal, on the floor between them, and a few violet- 
 colored crape hangings suspended from the ceiling, completed the 
 furniture of the room. As we entered we took our seats at one of 
 the tables. The Japanese commissioners soon came in, and placed 
 
NEGOTIATION OF THE TREATY. 521 
 
 themselves opposite to as, at the other tahe ; while behind us both, 
 seated on the floor on their knees # (their usual position, for the}? 
 do not use chairs), was a crowd of Japanese officers, forming the 
 train of the commissioners. 
 
 " The business was carried on in the Dutch language, through 
 interpreters, of whom they have several who speak very well, and 
 two or three who speak a little English. They were on their knees, 
 l^tween the commissioners and the commodore. Our interpreter 
 was seated by the side of the latter. It was curious to see the 
 intolerable ceremony observed by them, quite humiliating to a dem- 
 ocratic republican, A question proposed had to pass first through 
 the interpreters, and then through several officers ascending in 
 rank, before it could reach the commissioners, every one bowing his 
 forehead to the floor before he addressed his superior. Refresh- 
 ments were served in elegantly -lackered dishes; first of all, tea, 
 which, as in China, is the constant beverage ; then different kinds 
 of candy and sponge cake (they are excellent confectioners, and 
 very fond of sugar) ; lastly, oranges and a palatable liquor distilled 
 from rice, called saki. A flimsy banquet like -this was not very 
 agreeable to such hungry individuals as we, and we were the more 
 disappointed, for, the Japanese using only chopsticks, we had, pre- 
 viously to coming ashore, taken the precaution, as we shrewdly 
 thought, to provide ourselves with knives and forks. Imagine, then, 
 our chagrin, when finding nothing substantial upon which to employ 
 them. What was left on our plates was wrapped in paper, and given 
 to us to carry away, according to the usual custom in Japan. 
 
 " The commissioners were intelligent-looking men, richly dressed 
 in gay silk petticoat pantaloons, and upper garments resembling in 
 shape ladies' short gowns. Dark-colored stockings, and two ele- 
 gant swords pushed through a twisted silk girdle, finished the cos- 
 tume. Straw sandals are worn, but are always slipped off upon 
 entering a house. They do not cover the head, the top and front 
 part of which is shaved, and the back and side hair, being brought 
 up, is tied so as to form a tail, three or four" inches long, that ex- 
 tends forward upon the bald pate, terminating about half way 
 between the apex and the forehead. It is a very coniforable 
 
 * Rather on their heels. 
 44* 
 
522 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 fashion, and, were it not for the quantity of grease used in dressing 
 it" would be a very cleanly one. 
 
 " Two audiences a week were held, at which the same programme 
 was performed as related above, except that we fared more luxu- 
 riously* Becoming better acquainted witn our taste, they feasted 
 us with a broth made of fish, boiled shrimps, hard-boiled eggs, and 
 very good raw oysters. At one of the interviews (March 13), the 
 presents from our government were delivered. They consisted o^ 
 cloths, agricultural implements, fire-arms, &c, and a beautiful loco- 
 motive, tender, and passenger-car, one fourth the ordinary size, 
 which we put in motion on a circular track, at the rate of twenty 
 miles an hour. A mile of magnetic telegraph was also erected on 
 shore, and put in operation. The Japanese were more interested 
 in it than anything else, but never manifested any wonder. So 
 capable are they of concealing and controlling their feelings, that 
 they would examine the guns, machinery, &c, of the steamers, 
 without expressing the slightest astonishment. They are a much 
 finer-looking race than the Chinese — intelligent, polite, and hos 
 pitable, but proud, licentious, unforgiving, and revengeful." 
 
 The death of a marine afforded an opportunity at the first meet- 
 ing with the commissioners, of demanding a burying-place. It 
 was proposed to send the body to Nagasaki ; but, as the commo- 
 dore would not listen to that, a spot was assigned near one of their 
 temples, and in view of the ships, where the body was buried, with 
 all the forms of the English church service, after which the Japan- 
 ese surrounded the grave with a neat enclosure of bamboo. 
 
 A formal letter of reply to the .propositions contained in the let- 
 ters delivered at the former visit, repeated the story of a change of 
 succession, and the necessity of delays. The justice, however, of 
 the demands in relation to shipwrecked seamen, wood, water, pro- 
 visions, and coal, was conceded ; but five years were asked before 
 opening a new harbor, the Americans, in the mean time, to resort to 
 Nagasaki. 
 
 Of Nagasaki, however, the commodore would not hear, nor of 
 any restrictions like those imposed on the Dutch and Chinese at 
 
 * The number of American officers present at these interviews was from 
 twenty to fifty. 
 
THE TREATY AS AGREED TO. 523 
 
 that port. He demanded three haibors, one in Nipon, one in 
 Jeso, and a third in Lew Chew. As to the two last, the Japanese 
 pleaded that they were very distant countries, and only partially 
 subject to the emperor, especially the last, upon which the commo- 
 dore did not insist. In Nipon he asked for Uragawa, and for 
 Matsmai in Jeso, but acceded to the Japanese offer of Simoda and 
 Hakodade, having first sent a ship to examine the former. 
 
 The commissioners were exceedingly tenacious, even upon points 
 of phraseology, but gave evidence of acting in entire good faith, 
 and the commodore conceded everything which did not seem abso- 
 lutely essential. The extent of the liberty to be allowed to Amer- 
 ican visitors was one of the greatest difficulties. 
 
 Shortly before the treaty was concluded, the commodore gave an 
 entertainment on board the Powhatan to the Japanese officials, 
 about seventy in all. In conformity to their customs, two tables 
 were spread, one in the cabin for the commissioners and the cap- 
 tains of the fleet, another on deck for the inferior officers. " They 
 did full justice," says the letter-writer already quoted, " to Ameri- 
 can cookery, and were exceedingly fond of champagne, under the 
 influence of which they became so very merry and familiar that one 
 of them vigorously embraced the commodore, who, until his epaulets 
 began to suffer in the struggle, was very good-naturedly disposed to 
 endure it." 
 
 Three copies of the treaty, in Japanese, signed by the commis- 
 sioners, were delivered to the commodore, for which he exchanged 
 three copies in English, signed by himself, with Dutch and Chinese 
 translations. This method was adopted to satisfy the commission- 
 ers, who alleged that no Japanese could lawfully put his name to 
 any document written in a foreign language. The treaty was as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The United States of America and the Empire of Japan, desiring to estab- 
 lish firm, lasting, and sincere friendship between the two nations, have re- 
 solved to fix, in a manner clear and positive, by means of a treaty or general 
 convention of peace and amity, the rules which shall in future be mutually 
 observed in the intercourse of their respective countries ; for which most de- 
 sirable object, the President of the United States has conferred full powers 
 on his commissioner, Matthew Calbraith Perry, special Ambassador of the 
 United States to Japan ; and the august Sovereign of Japan has given similar 
 
524 JAPAN. A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 , ^ 
 
 full powers to his commissioners, Hayashi-'Daigaku-no-kami, Ido, prince of 
 Tsus-Sima, Izawa, prince of Mimasaki, and Udono, member of the Board 
 of Revenue. 
 
 "And the said commissioners, after having exchanged their said full 
 powers, and duly considered the premises, have agreed to the following 
 articles : 
 
 " Article I. — There shall be a perfect, permanent, and universal peace, 
 and a sincere and cordial amity, between the United States of America on 
 the one part, and between their people, respectfully [respectively], without 
 exception of persons or places. 
 
 " Article II. — The port of Simoda, in the principality of Idzu, and the 
 port of Hakodade, in the principality of Matsmai, are granted by the Japan- 
 ese as ports for the reception of American ships, where they can be supplied 
 with wood, water, provisions, and coal, and other articles their necessities 
 may require, as far as the Japanese have them. The time for opening the 
 first-named port is immediately on signing this treaty ; the last-named port 
 is to be opened immediately after the same day in the ensuing Japanese 
 year. 
 
 " Note. — A tariff of prices shall be given by the Japanese officers of the 
 things which they can furnish, payment for which shall be made in gold and 
 silver coin. 
 
 "Article III. — Whenever ships of the United States are thrown or 
 wrecked on the coast of Japan, the Japanese vessels will assist them, and 
 carry their crews to Simoda or Hakodade, and hand them over to their coun- 
 trymen appointed to receive them. Whatever articles the shipwrecked men 
 may have preserved shall likewise be restored ; and the expenses incurred in 
 the rescue and support of Americans and Japanese who may thus be thrown 
 upon the shores of either nation are not to be refunded. 
 
 "Article IV. — Those shipwrecked persons, and other citizens of the 
 United States, shall be free as in other countries, and not subjected to con- 
 finement, but shall be amenable to just laws. 
 
 " Article V. — Shipwrecked men, and other citizens of the United States, 
 temporarily living at Simoda and Hakodade, shall not be subject to such re- 
 strictions and confinement as the Dutch and Chinese are at Nagasaki ; but 
 shall be free at Simoda to go where they please within the limits of seven 
 Japanese miles (or ri) from a small island in the harbor of Simoda, marked 
 on the accompanying chart, hereto appended ; and shall, in like manner, be 
 free to go where they please at Hakodade, within limits to be defined after 
 the visit of the United States squadron to that place. 
 
 " Article VI. — If there be any other sort of goods wanted, or any busi- 
 ness which shall require to be arranged,, there shall be careful deliberation 
 between the parties in order to settle such matters. 
 
 " Article VII. — It is agreed that ships of the United States resorting to 
 the ports open to them, shall be permitted to exchange gold and silver coin, 
 and articles of goods, for other articles of goods, under such regulations 
 
TREATY. 52* 
 
 as shall be temporarily established by the Japanese government for that 
 purpose It is stipulated, however, that the ships of the United States 
 shall be permitted to carry away whatever articles they are unwilling to 
 exchange. 
 
 "Article VIII. — Wood, water, provisions, coal, and goods required, 
 shall only be procured through the agency of Japanese officers appointed for 
 that purpose, and in no other manner.. 
 
 " Article IX. — It is agreed, that if, at any future day, the government 
 of Japan shall grant to any other nation or nations privileges and advan- 
 tages which are not herein granted to the United States and the citizens 
 thereof, that these same privileges and advantages shall be granted like- 
 wise to the United States and to the citizens thereof without any consultation 
 or delay. 
 
 " Article X. — Ships of the United States shall be permitted to resort to 
 no other ports in Japan but Simoda and Hakodade, unless in distress or 
 forced by stress of weather. 
 
 "Article XI. — There shall be appointed by the government of the 
 United States consuls or agents to reside in Simoda, at any time after the 
 expiration of eighteen months from the date of the signing of this treaty ; 
 provided that either of the two governments deem such arrangement neces- 
 sary. 
 
 " Article XII. — The present convention, having been concluded and 
 duly signed, shall be obligatory, and faithfully observed by the United 
 States of America and Japan, and by the citizens and subjects of each re- 
 spective power ; and it is to be ratified and approved by the President of the 
 United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof, and 
 by the august Sovereign of Japan, and the ratification shall be exchanged 
 within eighteen months from the date of the signature thereof, or sooner if 
 practicable. 
 
 . " In faith whereof, we, the respective plenipotentiaries, of the United 
 States of America and the empire of Japan, aforesaid, have signed and sealed 
 these presents. 
 
 " Done at Kanagawa,* this thirty-first day of March, in the year of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, and of Kayei 
 the seventh year, third month, and third day." 
 
 The day after the signing of the treaty a number of presents 
 were sent on board for the president, the commodore, and other 
 officers of the squadron. 
 
 * The treaty is dated at Kanagawa, probably because it was the nearest 
 town. See Kampfer's mention of it, p. 358. Mr. Bidinger, chaplain of the 
 squadron, in one of his excursions on shore, managed to reach and pass 
 through it. He found it i large town. 
 
526 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 In agreeing to negotiate at Yokohama, Commodore Perry had 
 stated his intfl ntion to carry the ships, at some future time, close 
 up to Jedo, and to anchor them there, " as well to do honor to his 
 imperial majesty by salutes as to be in full view of the palace, and 
 convenient to be visited by such of the court as may desire to ex- 
 amine the steamers." . Accordingly, on the 8th of April, to the 
 great distress of the Japanese officials, he got under way ; but, as 
 the Japanese interpreters threatened to cut themselves open if 
 he proceeded, he presently turned about and took a lower anchor- 
 age down the bay. The published official letters of the commander 
 say nothing of this movement ; the letters from the fleet, published 
 in the newspapers, do not agree as to how far up the commodore 
 went. According to one letter, Jedo was full in sight. 
 
 On the 18th of April the fleet sailed for Simoda, one of the ports 
 granted in the treaty, of which a letter dated on board the Pow- 
 hatan, and published in the New York Tribune, gives this account : 
 
 ".Simoda is situated near Cape Fogu, sixty miles west from Point 
 Sagami, at the entrance of the bay of Yedo. It is a good, commo- 
 dious harbor, well sheltered by hills several hundred feet high, with 
 a rock within the entrance which affords a still more protected 
 anchorage. The town, of about one thousand houses, is situated at 
 the north-western end of the harbor, on the banks of a small stream 
 flowing down through a fertile valley, which is often not more than 
 half a mile wide, but sometimes widens to one and a half miles. 
 Several little brooks offer good watering-places for the ships. The 
 larger Japanese junks mostly anchor at Kakizaki, a village of about 
 three hundred houses, on the north-eastern end and opposite Simoda. 
 There are eight temples, some of which are very large, in the town, 
 and little chapels (mid) on almost every eminence, and by the road- 
 
 "The country is exceedingly picturesque, and resembles very 
 much the lower ranges of the Alps. Along the little river of 
 Simoda are many villages, and numbers of rice-mills stamp and 
 grind along its banks. About six miles above the bay this river 
 separates into several branches. Following either of them, you pass 
 through numerous gorges and glens, and finally reach the barren 
 tops of mountains, some three thousand feet high. Their summits 
 %nd the narrow tabl ) lands are covered with bushy grass, among 
 
SIMODA AND ITS VICINITY. 527 
 
 which a certain berry, upon which pheasants and partridges feed, 
 grows very plentifully. 
 
 " In one of the larger temples a place has been arranged for the 
 daguerreotype, and Mr. Brown is actively at work. He has ob- 
 tained many very fine daguerreotypes of the Japanese, and will 
 have a fine collection to show when he reaches home. Mr. Heine 
 continues his sketching, drawing, painting, gunning, skinning, press- 
 ing, and preserving plants. Lieutenants Murray, Bent, Whiting, 
 Nicholson, etc. etc., have been busily engaged in the survey, and 
 deserve no small credit for their exertions and the important 
 results they have obtained." 
 
 Of this visit to Simoda, the officer of the Vandalia already quoted 
 thus speaks : 
 
 " Here we were permitted to go on shore and ramble about in a 
 circuit for ten mile*, much to our delight, as we all felt the want 
 of exercise. Excepting at Yokohama, where we were not allowed 
 to go far from the audience house, we had not been on shore since 
 we left Lew Chew. They watched us very closely at first, sending 
 guards of soldiers to accompany us, shutting the shops, and conceal- 
 ing the women ; but in a few days these restrictions were removed, 
 and we were left undisturbed to wander where we pleased. The 
 town, containing eight thousand people, is pleasantly situated in a 
 well-cultivated valley, surrounded by high hills that conceal from 
 view the entrance to its safe and picturesque harbor* The streets 
 are wide and straight, and the better class of houses two stories 
 high, plastered, and roofed with elegant tiles.* The interior is kept 
 very clean and neat, and the rooms, covered with mats, are separ- 
 1 ated from each other by sliding screens, that are closed or removed 
 at pleasure. There are no chimneys in Japan. A charcoal fire is 
 built in a little sand-pit in the middle of the floor, around which 
 the family are usually found seated on their knees [qu. heels?], 
 drinking tea and smoking their pipes. Not a chair or any other 
 piece of furniture can be seen. Tubs of water are kept in front of 
 each house, as well as on the roofs, in readiness against any fire, 
 for conflagrations are so frequent and extensive, that whole towns 
 are sometimes burnt down. 
 
 * See, as to the roofs in Hakodade, p. 529, and employ these two 
 to reconcile the discrepancy noticed on p. 297, note. 
 
528 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 " The temples, chiefly Buddhist, are beautifully situated in the 
 suburbs. The entrance to them leads generally through rows of 
 elegant trees and wild camelias. They are large, plain structures, 
 with high peaked roofs, resembling the houses pictured on Chinese 
 porcelain. In the space immediately in front is a large bell for 
 summoning the faithful, a stone reservoir of holy water, and several 
 roughly-hewn stone idols. The doorway is ornamented with curi- 
 ous-looking dragons and other animals, carved in wood. Upon 
 entering, there is nothing special about the buildings worth noting, 
 the naked sides and "exposed rafters having a gloomy appearance. 
 The altar is the only object that attracts attention. It so much 
 resembles the Roman Catholic, that I need not describe it. Some 
 of the idols on these altars are so similar to those I have seen in 
 the churches in Italy, that if they were mutually translated I doubt 
 whether either set of worshippers would disco var the change. The 
 priests count beads, shave their heads, and wear analogous robes, 
 and the service is attended by the ringing of bells, the lighting of 
 candles, and the burning of incense. In fact, except that the cross 
 is nowhere to be seen, one could easily imagine himself within a 
 Roman Catholic place of worship. 
 
 " I saw some very pretty girls here. They understand the art of 
 applying rouge and pearl powder, as well as some of our ladies at 
 home. The married women have a horrid and disgusting fashion 
 of staining their teeth black." 
 
 After remaining three weeks at Simoda, which soon after wag 
 made an imperial city, the sailing-vessels departed for Hakodade, 
 followed a few days after by the steamers. Of the island of Oosi- 
 ma, near the entrance of the bay of Jedo, and close to which the 
 Powhatan passed, the Tribune correspondent gives the following 
 description : 
 
 " About noon we were within three miles of the island of Oosima, 
 and had a fine opportunity of observing the traces of volcanic action 
 which it presents. The whole island is one immense volcano, the 
 top of which has fallen in and formed a great basin, which inces- 
 santly belches forth white smoke and ashes. The edges of the 
 crater are black, as if charred by fire, and on the south-western 
 Bide of the island a stream of lava reaches from the summit to the 
 sea. Some large crevices continue still smoking, and others are 
 
HAKODADE. 529 
 
 filled with ashes. A bluff near the sea, about two hundred feet 
 high, appears to be of recent formation, for the bushes and trees 
 along the edges of the lava have a yellow, burnt appearance. The 
 slopes of the mountain are covered with luxuriant vegetation : and 
 there are two towns, one on a narrow table-land, and the other on 
 the top of a steep cliff, near a suspicious-looking crater. There 
 is said to be a third village on the north-western side of the 
 island."* 
 
 Of Hakodade, in the island of Matsmai, already known to us 
 by Grolownin's description, which the squadron visited in the month 
 of May, the same letter affords the following account : 
 
 " Hakodade is another Gibraltar. It has the same long, low 
 isthmus, ending in the same mighty rock, with another city sitting 
 at its feet. The bay is seven or eight miles wide, with an entrance 
 of two or three miles in width ; it is deep enough for ships-of-the- 
 line to approach within a mile of the shore, and its clayey bottom, 
 free from rocks or shoals, affords excellent anchorage, while it is 
 defended from the sea by a sand-bank, a prolongation of the isthmus. 
 Behind the bay the land is quite level, but at the distance of six or 
 eight miles it rises into a range of hills from one to three thousand 
 feet high. These hills, still covered with snow, send down several 
 streams to the bay, furnishing the best of water for ships. The 
 plain is finely cultivated, and fishing villages line the shore. We 
 took fish plentifully, — one day twenty buckets, with more than 
 twenty fine salmon, some weighing fifteen pounds. 
 
 " The city has, I should guess, about four thousand houses, and 
 perhaps five times as many inhabitants. The two main streets are 
 parallel, and run along the foot of the mountain. Narrower streets 
 run from the wharves up the mountain, crossing both the principal 
 streets, one of which is about thirty feet higher than the other. 
 The lower of these is almost as broad as Broadway, and infinitely 
 cleaner. The houses on it are well built ; most of them have two 
 stories, with shops on the ground floor. The manner of building 
 reminds one very strongly of Switzerland. A flat, projecting roof 
 is covered with shingles, which are fastened by long poles, with 
 stones laid upon them ; broad galleries run quite around the upper 
 
 * There is a volcanic island similar to this, off the south coast of Sat suma» 
 and another near Firando. 
 
 46 
 
580 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 story ; before the door is a little wooden porch ; this, too, with pro- 
 jecting gable, which, as well as the pillars that support it are often 
 adorned with rich carving. The temples, one of which is at least 
 two hundred and fifty feet square, are profusely ornamented with 
 carvings. Dragons, horses, bulls and hares, figure largely, but tor- 
 toises and cranes carry the day." 
 
 From Hakodade, where the intercourse with the local official? 
 was entirely satisfactory, the ships returned to Simoda, where, 
 according to an appointment previously made, the commodore met 
 the four commissioners, and three new ones, with whom he pro- 
 ceeded to negotiate the following Additional Regulations : 
 
 " Article I. — The imperial governors of Simocla will place watch-stations 
 wherever they deem best, to designate the limits of their jurisdiction ; but 
 Americans are at liberty to go through them, unrestricted, within the limits 
 of seven Japanese ri, or miles [equal to sixteen English miles] ; and those 
 who are found transgressing Japanese laws may be apprehended by the police 
 and taken on board their ships. 
 
 " Article II. — Three landing-places shall be constructed for the boats of 
 merchant ships and whale ships resorting to this port ; one at Simoda, one 
 at Kakizaki, and the third at the brook lying south-east of Centre Island. 
 The citizens of the United States will, of course, treat the Japanese officers 
 with proper respect. 
 
 " Article III. — Americans, when on shore, are not allowed access to mil- 
 itary establishments, or private houses, without leave ; but they can enter 
 shops and visit temples as they please. 
 
 " Article IV. — Two temples, the Kioshen at Simoda, and the Yokushen 
 at Kakizaki, are assigned as resting-places for persons in their walks, until 
 public houses and inns are erected for their convenience. 
 
 " Article V. — Near the Temple Yokushen, at Kakizaki, a burial-ground 
 has been set apart for Americans, where their graves and tombs shall not be 
 molested. 
 
 " Article VI. — It is stipulated in the treaty of Kanagawa, that coal will 
 be furnished at Hakodade ; but as it is very difficult for the Japanese to sup- 
 ply it at that port, Commodore Perry promises to mention this to his govern- 
 ment, in order that the Japanese government may be relieved from the obli- 
 gation of making that port a coal depot. 
 
 " Article VII. — It is agreed that henceforth the Chinese language shall 
 not be employed in official communications between the two governments, 
 except when there is no Dutch interpreter. 
 
 " Artkjle VIII. — A harbor-master and three skilful pilots have been 
 appointed for the port of Simoda. 
 
 " Arts le IX. — "Whenever goods are selected in the shops, they shall be 
 
MONETARY SYSTEM. 53± 
 
 marked with the name of the purchaser and the price agreed upon, and then 
 be sent to the Goyoshi, or government office, where the money is to be paid 
 to Japanese officers, and the articles delivered by them. 
 
 " Article X. — The shooting of birds and animals is generally forbidden 
 in Japan, and this law is therefore to be observed by all Americans. 
 
 " Article XL ■ — It is hereby agreed that five Japanese ri, or miles, be the 
 limit allowed to Americans at Hakodade, and the requirements contained in 
 Article I. of these Regulations are hereby made also applicable to that port 
 within that distance. 
 
 " Article XII. — His Majesty the Emperor of Japan is at liberty to appoint 
 whoever he pleases to receive the ratification of the treaty of Kanagawa, and 
 give an acknowledgment on his part. 
 
 " It is agreed that nothing herein contained shall in any way affect or 
 modify the stipulations of the treaty of Kanagawa, should that be found to 
 be contrary to these regulations." 
 
 Another important matter, in which the Japanese seem entirely 
 to have carried the day, was the settlement of the value of the 
 American coins to be received in payment for goods and supplies — 
 a subject referred to a commission composed of two United States 
 pursers and nine Japanese. 
 
 The Japanese circulating medium was found to consist of old kas, 
 round, with a square hole in the middle, like the Chinese cash, but 
 thinner, and containing more iron ; of four-kas pieces, in weight 
 equal to less than two of the others, probably Kampfer's double 
 seni; but principally of a new coin rated at one hundred kas, — 
 apparently a substitute for the strings of kas mentioned by Kamp- 
 fer and others. These are oval-shaped pieces of copper, about the 
 size and shape of a longitudinal section of an egg, introduced within 
 a recent period, and weighing only as much as seven of the old kas 
 (or, compared with our cents, a little less than two of them). This 
 over-valuation has, of course, driven the old kas out of circulation, 
 and made this depreciated coin the integer of the currency. At 
 the same time, it has raised the nominal value of everything, as is 
 evident in the case of silver and gold. Instead of one thousand kas 
 to the tael of silver, the rate in former times, the government, which 
 appears to have the monopoly of the mines, sells silver bullion for 
 manufacturing use at two thousand two hundred and fifty kas for 
 (lie tad, — a rate fixed probably under some less depreciated state 
 of the currency. But when coined, a tael's weight of silver is reck- 
 oned in currjiicy at six thousand four hundred kas, that is, at 8L3 
 
532 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 tael and f jur mas, or precisely the valuation, in Kitmpfer's time, 
 of the gold kobang ; and as the inchebu of his day, that is, one 
 fourth part, as the word signifies in Japanese, represented six- 
 teen hundred kas in real weight of silver, so the inchebu of the 
 present day, of which there is both a silver and a gold one, 
 represents sixteen hundred kas of currency. The bullion price 
 of gold in Japan is only eight and a half times that of silver 
 instead of sixteen times, as with us ; while in currency the differ- 
 ence in value is only about as one to three and a half, the price in 
 silver, or copper hundred-kas pieces, of a tael's weight of gold bul- 
 lion being nineteen tael, and the same when coined passing as 
 twenty-three taels, seven mas and five kanderin. Besides the 
 gold inchebu, the Japanese are represented as having three other 
 gold coins, thin, oval pieces, of the currency value respectively of 
 one, ten and twenty tael ;* also a coin, made of gold and silver, 
 worth half an inchebu, or eight hundred-kas pieces, and a small 
 silver piece, worth a quarter of an inchebu, or four hundred-kas 
 pieces. 
 
 * It is said that these coin are called kobang, but that ancient name can 
 hardly be applied at the same time to three coins, of such different values. 
 The old kobang of Kampfer would be worth at present rates about eleven 
 tael ; the new kobang of 1708 not quite six tael. For the above account of 
 the Japanese coins and monetary system, on which subject the official report 
 of the two American commissioners is rather blind, I have been much 
 indebted to an elaborate paper on the trade to Japan, written by S. Wells 
 Williams, the Chinese interpreter to the embassy, and originally published 
 in the N. Y. Times. No person in the fleet was so well prepared by pre- 
 vious studies and the experience of a long residence in China and familiarity 
 with Chinese literature to make intelligent observations in Japan ; and some 
 very valuable extracts from the article above referred to make up Note G of 
 the Appendix. Japan has, like Europe, its numismatology. Jancigny men- 
 tions a Japanese treatise on this subject, published at Yeclo in 1822, in seven 
 volumes, which describes five hundred and fifty coins, with colored prints 
 (the color being given in the impression) of most of them. The Japanese 
 coins are not struck, but cast in a mould. They are, however, exceedingly 
 well finished, and the impression sharp. Siebold speaks of halfs, quarters, 
 and sixteenths of a kobang in gold ; and of eighths and sixteenths of a 
 kobang in silver ; and, according to his account, there are in some provinces 
 seni and eighths of a kobang in paper notes. This practice might have been 
 borrowed from the Chinese — paper money being one of the numerous in- 
 ventions in which they anticipated us of the West. 
 
PILOTA GE. — COAL. 533 
 
 The Japanese commissioners insisted that our coin was but bul- 
 lion to them, the effect of which is to put our silver dollar, so far 
 as payments in Japan are concerned, precisely on a level with 
 their silver inchebu, which weighs only one third as much. Out 
 gold coins, compared with their gold coins, stand better, the relative 
 weight of our gold dollar and th|ir gold inchebu being as 65.33 to 
 52.25 ; but as the copper hundred-kas piece is their standard, and 
 as its value in relation to gold is rated so much higher than with 
 us, our gold dollar, estimated in this way, becomes worth only eight 
 hundred and thirty-six kas, or little more than eight and a third 
 hundred-kas pieces, or not much more than half an inchebu ; the 
 effect of all which is to give the Japanese government, through 
 whose hands all payments are made, a profit, after recoinage, of 
 sixty-six per cent, upon all payments in American coin. As the 
 Japanese commissioners would not depart from this scheme, the 
 commission dissolved without coming to any agreement on this 
 point. But the supplies furnished to the squadron were paid for 
 at the rate insisted upon by the Japanese ; nor can private traders, 
 as matters stand, expect any better terms. 
 
 The rates of pilotage at Simoda were fixed at fifteen dollars for 
 vessels drawing over eighteen feet, five dollars for vessels drawing 
 less than thirteen feet, and ten dollars for those of intermediate 
 size ; only half of these rates to be paid in case of anchorage 
 in the outer harbor. Water was to be furnished at fourteen 
 hundred kas the boat-load, the ship finding casks. Wood was to 
 be delivered on board at seven thousand two hundred kas per cube 
 of five American feet. 
 
 The price put by the Japanese upon a few tons of inferior coal, 
 brought to Simoda, amounted, at their rate of exchange, to twenty- 
 eight dollars the ton. It did not appear that coal was anywhere 
 else mined except at the spot visited by Kiimpfer and Siebold near 
 Kokura, and another mine in the province of Awa, in the island 
 Sikokf. 
 
 The bisiness thus completed, a parting entertainment was given 
 
 on board the Mississippi ; and, after an interchange of presents, the 
 
 vessels, on the 26th of June, took their departure. Stopping at 
 
 Lew Chew, Commodore Pcrry.negotiated a compact with the author 
 
 45* " 
 
534 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 ities of that island, which, from all the information he could obtain 
 he concluded to be a nearly independent sovereignty, 
 
 Within fifteen days after Commodore Perry's departure from 
 Simoda, the clipper ship Lady Pierce, from San Francisco, fitted 
 out for the express purpose of being the first American ship to 
 arrive in Japan after the opening of commercial relations, entered 
 the bay of Jedo, with the owner, Silas E. Burrows, on board. 
 
 He had with him a Japanese seaman, the sole survivor of a crew 
 of fifteen men, belonging to a junk which had been blown out to sea, 
 and was picked up near the Sandwich Islands, after having drifted 
 about for seven months. This man, who is represented as quite 
 intelligent, and who had resided - for some time at San Francisco, 
 was received with lively demonstrations of pleasure by his country- 
 men. 
 
 With a party of the Uragawa officials on board, the Lady Pierce 
 proceeded to within ten miles of Jedo, and her owners expressed a 
 desire to anchor off that city ; but this was objected to by the offi- 
 cers, who said, "It is not good ; Commodore Perry did not go there, 
 and we hope you will not." 
 
 During the stay of the vessel, every part of her was crowded with 
 visitors ; and although at one time there must have been several 
 thousands in and around the ship, and although everything, silver- 
 ware included, was thrown open to their inspection, not a single 
 article was stolen. 
 
 Large presents of silk, porcelain, lackered ware, &c, were made 
 to Mr. Burrows, who, however, was informed that henceforward 
 no foreign intercourse would be permitted with Jedo, but that all 
 vessels must proceed either to Simoda or Hakodade. Mr. Bur- 
 rows himself proceeded to Simoda, but does not seem to have 
 formed a very high idea of the prospects of trade there.* 
 
 * The following is given in the San Francisco Herald as a copy of the 
 address presented to Mr. Burrows on this occasion : 
 
 " With pleasure we welcome you to Jedo Bay, and in doing so, can assure 
 you that your ship, the Lady Pierce, is the first foreign vessel that has been 
 received by us with pleasure. 
 
 " Commodore Perry brought with him too many large guns and fighting 
 men to be pleasing to us ; but you have come in your beautiful ship, which 
 is superior to any we ha -3 before seen, to visit us, without any hostile 
 
THIRD VISIT OF THE AMERICAN STEAMERS. 535 
 
 On the 18th of September, the steam-frigate Susquehanna again 
 appeared at Simotla, on her way home via the Sandwich Islands 
 followed on the 21st by the Mississippi ; three days after which, the 
 
 weapons, and the Emperor has ordered that you shall have all the kindness 
 and liberty extended to you that Commodore Perry received. 
 
 " You have, Mr. Burrows, come here, relying on our friendship and hos- 
 pitality, and we assure you that, although we have been shut out for ages 
 from other nations of the world, yet you shall bear with you, when returning 
 to your country, the knowledge that our Emperor and the Japanese his sub- 
 jects will never fail of extending protection to those who come as you do to 
 Japan. But the Emperor is particularly desirous that you should extend 
 the terms of the treaty made with Commodore Perry, wherever you may go, 
 to prevent any more ships coming to Jedo Bay, as all must hereafter go to 
 Simoda or Hakodade. 
 
 " It has given the Emperor and all the Japanese great pleasui'e that you 
 have returned to Japan our countryman, Dee-yee-no-skee, who was ship- 
 wrecked, and who has been residing for some time in your country, where 
 he states he has been treated with the greatest kindness, and particularly so 
 on board your ship, the Lady Pierce. That you should have made a voyage 
 to Japan to restore him to his friends and home, without any other induce- 
 ment, as you say, except to see Japan, and to form a friendship with us, 
 merits and will ever receive our most friendly feelings ; and, be assured, if 
 any of your countrymen, or other people, are shipwrecked on our shores, we 
 will extend the same kindness to them that you have to our countrymen, and 
 place them at Simoda or Hakodade, and thus open to the world that our 
 religion, which is so different from yours, governs the Japanese, in all their 
 dealings, by as correct principles as yours governs you. We understand what 
 ships of war are ; also what whaling ships and merchant ships are ; but we 
 never before heard, till you came here, of such a ship as yours, — a private 
 gentleman's pleasure ship, — coming so far as you have, without any money- 
 making business of trade, and only to see Japan, to become acquainted with 
 us, and bring home one of our shipwrecked people, the first that has returned 
 to his country from America or foreign lands. 
 
 " You oiler us, as presents, all the rare and beautiful articles you have in 
 your ship ; but we have received orders from the Emperor that we must not 
 tax your kind feelings by taking anything from you, as you have already 
 been sufficiently taxed in returning Dee-yee-no-skee. 
 
 " The Emperor also directs that all the gold pieces you have presented to 
 the Japanese must be collected and returned to you, and to say that he alone 
 must make presents in Jedo Bay. He has directed presents to be made tc 
 you, in the Emperor's name, by the governor of Simoda, where he desires 
 you will proceed in your ship, the Lady Pierce, and land Dee-yee-no-skee, 
 which will be in compliance with the treaty. 
 
 " Ycr:r visit to Japan in the Lady Pierce has been attended with great 
 
536 JAPAN. A. D. 1817—1851. 
 
 Susquehanna left, and the Mississippi on the 1st of October. Tha 
 reception given to the officers of both ships was very cordial, and 
 their intercourse both with officials and the towns-people was almost 
 entirely free from any marks of that restraint and apparent suspi- 
 cion exhibited on former occasions. Besides an interchange of 
 visits and dinners, several Japanese officials attended, on a Sunday, 
 divine service on board the Susquehanna. 
 
 " Many of us," writes an officer of the Mississippi, " entered 
 houses very frequently, and sat down with the people to smoke or 
 drink tea. One day the sound of a guitar attracted me, and I found 
 an olive girl, of some fifteen or sixteen years, who, not perceiving my 
 presence, continued her play. It was a strange tune, wild and mel- 
 ancholy, and often abruptly interrupted by harsh accords. After 
 a while some women that had assembled around us made the girl 
 aware of my presence ; she threw down her instrument and began 
 to cry, and I could not induce her to play again. The guitar was 
 made of wood, with the exception of the upper lid. Of the three 
 strings, two were in the octave, the middle one giving the fifth. 
 The strings were not touched by the fingers, but with a flat piece 
 of horn, held between the thumb and third finger of the right hand, 
 in shape not unlike the one painters use to clean their palettes and 
 mix their colors. 
 
 " On another occasion, I heard a young man playing a flute. 
 This instrument was of the most primitive description, consisting 
 only of a piece of hollow bamboo, bored with seven finger-holes, and 
 the hole for the mouth. The tunes were very strange, and ap- 
 peared to me more like a mass of confused sounds, than a regular 
 harmony. 
 
 " At the beginning of the new moon, I saw in several houses a 
 sort of domestic worship. A number of women had assembled 
 before the shrine of the household god, and, divided in two parties, 
 were singing hymns, one party alternately answering the other. 
 Their song was accompanied by strokes upon a little bell or gong, 
 
 interest to us, and you will not be forgotten by the Japanese. We hope we 
 m,iy meet you again, and we hope you will come back to Japan. 
 
 " The Emperor has directed that two ships like yours shall be built, and 
 we thank you for having allowed us to take drawings of the Lady Pierce, and 
 of all that we desired on board." 
 
SIMODA. 537 
 
 with a small wooden hammer ; and, as the bells were of different 
 tones, the effect was by no means unpleasant." 
 
 " There are a number of temples near Simoda," writes an officer 
 of the Susquehanna, " and attached to each is a grave-yard. At 
 one of these, situated near a village, there is a place set apart for 
 Americans. Here Dr. Hamilton was buried, being laid by the side 
 of two others who had died on the second visit of the ships. Each 
 grave has its appropriate stone, as with us, and by many of them 
 are evergreens set in vases, or joints of bamboo, containing water. 
 Cups of fresh water are also set by the graves, and to these, birds 
 of dazzling plumage and delightful song come and drink. The 
 graves of the Americans were not forgotten." 
 
 The officers were permitted to go into the country any distance 
 they wished, and the country people were found pleasant and socia- 
 ble; but upon this second visit, the advantages of Simoda as a 
 place of trade, or the prospects of traffic under the treaty, do not 
 seem to have struck the visitors very favorably. " The harbor," 
 writes an officer of the Susquehanna to the Tribune, " is a small 
 indentation of land, running north-east and south-west, about a 
 half-mile in extent, and is capable of holding five or six vessels of 
 ordinary size. It is, however, entirely unprotected from the south- 
 west winds, which bring with them a heavy sea, and which renders 
 the anchorage very unsafe. With the wind from the north and the 
 east, the vessel rides at her ease at her anchorage. Good wood 
 and sweet water, as well as a few provisions, were obtained from 
 the authorities, for the use of the ship, at the most extravagant 
 prices. Numerous articles, such as lackered and China ware, of a 
 very fine and delicate quality, and far superior to that manufac- 
 tured in China, were purchased by the officers ; but every article 
 had to pass through the hands of the Japanese officers, and the 
 amount due the merchants had to be paid, not to them, but to the 
 Japanese officials who had been appointed for that very purpose 
 by the mayor of the city and the governor of the province. This 
 article of the treaty will be most scrupulously enforced ; and this 
 is decidedly its worst feature." 
 
 " Simoda," writes another officer, " does not appear well calcu- 
 lated, upon the whole, for a place of trade, and it can never become 
 an active commercial town. Neith>r is it a manufacturing town. 
 
538 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 This, added to the fact that the harbor is a bad one, will make it 
 appear evident that the Japanese commissioners got the better of 
 lis in the treaty, as far as this place is concerned. 
 
 " The surrounding country (wherever nature will permit it) is 
 highly cultivated. The valley of the creek is broad and well tilled; 
 yielding rice, millet, Egyptian corn and maize.* The ears produced 
 by the last are very small, being not more than from two to four 
 inches in length. Sweet potatoes and the egg-plant are also raised 
 in great abundance. There are no horses about Simoda, and bul- 
 locks are made to supply their places. Provisions, with the excep- 
 tion of eggs and vegetables, cannot be obtained here. The shark 
 and banito are the only large fish found in the harbor. Small fish 
 are plentiful, and they seem to form almost the only article of food 
 of the inhabitants, besides rice." 
 
 The following description of the houses at Simoda, by Mr. S.. 
 Wells Williams, will serve to illustrate the descriptions of Japanese 
 houses already given from Kampfer and Thunberg, and -will show 
 how little, as to that matter, Japan has altered since their time : 
 
 " The houses in Simoda are built merely of pine boards, or of 
 plaster thickly spread over a wattled wall of laths, the interstices 
 of which are filled in with mud. In some cases these modes of 
 construction are combined — the front and rear being of boards, or 
 sliding panels, and the sides of mud. When thoroughly dried, 
 the mud is whitewashed, and the plain surface worked into round 
 ridges, three inches high, crossing each other diagonally from 
 the roof to the ground ; the ridges are then washed blue, and give 
 the exterior a checker-board look, which, though singular, is more 
 lively than a blue mud wall. The plaster is excellent, and these 
 walls appear very solid and rather pretty when new ; at a distance 
 one would even think them to be stone ; but after a few years the 
 ridges loosen, the rain insinuates itself beneath the outer coating, 
 and the whole begins to scale and crack off, disclosing the mud and 
 rushes, and then the tenement soon falls to pieces. Still the progress 
 of decay is not so rapid as one would think, judging only by 
 the nature of the materials, and the walls are well protected by 
 the projecting eaves. No bricks are used in building, nor are 
 
 * This, probably, is one of the Portuguese legacies to Japan. 
 
SIMODA. 539 
 
 square tiles for floors seen ; and the manner of making walls com- 
 mon in southern China, by beating sanded clay into wooden moulds, 
 is unknown. 
 
 " Some of the best houses and temples have stone foundations, a 
 few only of which are made of dressed stone. Half a dozen or 
 more store-houses occur, faced entirely with slabs of stone, and 
 standing detached from other buildings, and are doubtless fire-proof 
 buildings. There are no cellars under the houses ; the floors are 
 raised on sleepers only two feet above the beaten ground, and 
 uniformly covered with straw mats stuffed with chaff, or grass, an 
 inch thick. The -frames are of pine, the joists four or five inches 
 square, and held together by the flooring of the attic, as well as the 
 plates and ridge-pole. The houses and shops join each other on the 
 sides, with few exceptions, leaving the front and rear open. There 
 is no uniformity in the width of the lots, the fronts of some shops 
 extending twenty, thirty, or more feet along the street, while inter- 
 mediate ones are mere stalls, not over ten feet wide. 
 
 " The shops succeed each other without any regular order as to 
 their contents, those of the same sort not being arranged together, 
 as is often the case in China. The finer wares are usually kept in 
 drawers, so that, unless one is well acquainted with the place, he 
 cannot easily find the goods he seeks. The eaves of the houses pro- 
 ject about four feet from the front, and are not over eight feet from 
 the ground ; • the porch thus made furnishes a covered place for 
 arranging crockery, fruits, &c, for sale, trays of trinkets on a 
 movable stall, baskets of grain, or other coarse articles, to attract 
 buyers. The entrance is on one side, and the path leads directly 
 through to the rear. The wooden shutters of shops are all removed 
 in the daytime, and the paper windows closed, or thrust aside, 
 according to the weather. On a pleasant day the doors are open, 
 and in lieu of the windows a screen is hung midway, so as to con- 
 ceal the shopman and his customer from observation, while those 
 goods placed on the stand are still under his eye. A case, with 
 latticed or wire doors, to contain the fine articles of earthen ware, a 
 framework, with hooks and shelves, to suspend iron utensils or 
 wooden ware, or a movable case of drawers, to hold silks, fine 
 lackered ware, or similar goods, constitute nearly all the furniture 
 of the shops. Apothecaries' shops are hung with gilded signs and 
 paper placards, .setting forth the variety and virtues of their incdi- 
 
540 JAPAtf. — A. D. 1817—1854. 
 
 cines, some of which are described as brought from Europe. The 
 partition which separates the shops from the dwelling is sometimes 
 closed, but more usually open ; and a customer has, generally speak- 
 ing, as much to do with the mistress as the master of the establish- 
 ment. When he enters, his straw sandals are always left on the 
 ground as he steps on the mats and squats down to look at tho 
 goods, which are then spread out on the floor. A foreigner has 
 need of some thoughtfulness in this particular, as it is an annoyance 
 to a Japanese to have his mats soiled by dirty feet, or broken 
 through by coarse shoes. 
 
 " The rear of the building is appropriated to the family. Here 
 the domestic operations are all carried on ; here the family take 
 their meals in the day ; here, on the same mats, do they sleep at 
 night ; receiving visitors and dressing the children are also done here, 
 and sometimes the cooking too. Usually this latter household task 
 is performed in the porch in the rear, or in an out-house, so that the 
 inmates are not so much annoyed with smoke as they are in Hako- 
 dade. No arrangements for warming the dwelling are to be found 
 except that of hand-braziers placed in the middle of the room with 
 lighted charcoal, around which the family gather. In most of the 
 houses there is a garret, reached by a ladder, — a dark and small 
 apartment, where some goods can be stored, or servants can be 
 lodged. There is not a house in the town whose occupants have 
 arranged this attic with windows and stairways to make it a 
 pleasant room ; a few such were, however, seen near the capital, at 
 Kanagawa, and in its vicinity. 
 
 " The roofs of all the best buildings are hipped, and covered with 
 bluish tiling, each tile being about eight inches square, shaped 
 somewhat like a wedge ; the thick side is so made that, when laid 
 on the rafters, it laps sideways over the thin edge of the adjoining 
 tile in the next row, and thus forms gutters somewhat like the 
 Chinese roofs. They are washed in alternate rows of white and 
 blue, which, with the checkered walls, imparts a lively aspect, and 
 contrasts pleasantly with the more numerous dingy thatched roofs. 
 The thatched roofs are made of a species of Arundo, grown and 
 prepared for this purpose, and answering admirably as a cheap and 
 light covering to the wooden tenements occupied by most of the 
 people. It is matted into a compact mass ^'ghteen inches thick, as 
 
SIMODA. 541 
 
 it is laid on, and then the surface and the sides are neatly sheared. 
 The ridge-pole is protected by laying the thatch over a row of hoops 
 that enclose it enough to overlap the edges on both slopes, and pre- 
 vent the rain finding entrance. One cannot feel surprise at the 
 ravages fires make in Japanese towns, where the least wind must 
 blow the flame upon such straw coverings, which, like a tinder-box, 
 would ignite at the first spark. Wires are stretched along the 
 ridges of some of the tiled roofs in Simoda to prevent birds from 
 resting on the houses. 
 
 " In the rear yards, attached to a large number of the dwellings, 
 are out-houses, and sometimes, as in the lodging-houses, additional 
 sleeping-rooms. Kitchen-gardens are not unfrequently seen, and 
 more rarely fancy fish-ponds, dwarfed trees, and even stoite carvings. 
 A family shrine, made like a miniature house, containing images of 
 penates and lares, is met with in most of the yards. Only a few 
 of them are adorned with large trees, and still fewer of them 
 exhibit marks of care or taste, presenting in this respect an observ- 
 able contrast to the neatness of the houses. High hedges or stone 
 walls separate these yards when they are contiguous, but the depth 
 of the lots is usually insufficient to allow room for both the opposite 
 dwellings the luxury of a garden. 
 
 " There is not much variety in the structure of the various build- 
 ings in Simoda, and their general appearance denotes little enter- 
 prise or wealth. The paper windows and doors, not a few of them 
 dirty and covered with writing, or torn by children to take a peep 
 inside, impart a monotonous aspect to the streets. Dyers', car- 
 penters', blacksmiths', stone-cutters', and some other shops, have 
 latticed fronts to admit more light, which are elevated above the 
 observation of persons passing by. In front of those dwellings 
 occupied by officials, a white cotton curtain, three feet wide, is 
 stretched along the whole length of the porch, having the coat of 
 arms of the occupant painted on it in black ; the names of the 
 principal lodgers are also stuck on the door-posts. Signs are mostly 
 written on the doors, as the windows are drawn aside during the 
 day ; but only a portion of the shops have any. Lodging-houses 
 barbers' shops, restaurants, or tea-houses, apothecaries, and a few 
 others, are almost always indicated by signs. One dealer in crock- 
 ery and lackered ware has the sign of a celebrated medicine 
 46 
 
542 JAPAN. — A. D. 1817— 1854. 
 
 placed on a high pole, and, the more to attract, attention, has written 
 the name in foreign letters. As in China, placards for medicines 
 were the most conspicuous of all, but none are pasted upon blank 
 walls ; all are suspended in the shops. However, no dwelling or 
 shop is left unprotected from the ill-usage of malignant spirits,, 
 every one having a written or printed charm or picture (sometimes a 
 score or more) over the door to defend the inmates from evil." 
 
 In the interval between Commodore Perry's first and second 
 visits to the bay of Jedo, Nagasaki was visited by a Russian squad- 
 ron. On the 7th of September, 1854, just before the last visit of 
 the Mississippi and Susquehanna to Simoda, a British squadron of 
 three steamers and a frigate arrived at Nagasaki under Admiral 
 Sterling. *These British vessels, which found the annual Dutch 
 trading ship, two large Chinese junks, also a Butch steamer, lying 
 in the harbor, encountered the usual reception, being served with 
 notices, surrounded with boats, and denied liberty to land. At 
 length, however, after a deal of negotiation and threats to proceed 
 to Jedo, it was agreed to furnish supplies, tea, rice, pigs, &c, 
 and to receive payment through the Butch. On the 15th the 
 admiral landed, and was conducted in state to the governor's house. 
 The guard-boats were withdrawn, and the men were allowed to 
 land on an island to recreate themselves. Other interviews fol- 
 lowed, presents were interchanged, and, on the 19th, the squadron 
 left. These particulars are drawn from the published letter of 
 a medical officer on board, who describes the supplies furnished 
 as very good, and the Japanese soy as cheap and nice, but who 
 does not seem to have relished the saki, which he likens in taste 
 to acetate of ammonia water. 
 
 The American war-steamer Powhatan, visited Simoda February 
 21, 1855, to complete the exchange of ratification, which done, she 
 sailed again two days after. The town of Simoda was found in a 
 state of desolation and ruin, from the effects of a disastrous earth- 
 quake, on the 23d of December previous, in which the Russian 
 frigate Biana, then lying in the harbor to complete the pending 
 negotiations, was so damaged, as to have sunk in attempting to 
 make a neighboring port for repairs. Osaka and Jedo were re- 
 ported to have suffered severely, and Jedo still more from a subse- 
 quent fire. 
 
CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 NEW DUTCH TREATY. — MR. HARRIS, AMERICAN CONSUL, AT SIMODA. — HIS 
 CONVENTION WITH THE JAPANESE. — HIS JOURNEY TO JEDO. — SECOND 
 VISIT TO JEDO. — CONDITIONAL TREATY. — BRITISH TREATY. — FRENCH 
 AND RUSSIAN TREATIES. —JAPANESE EMBASSY TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The success of the Americans in forming a treaty with Ja- 
 pan, led to negotiations on the part of the Dutch, by which the 
 narrow privileges enjoyed by that nation were considerably 
 extended. By this treaty, which was signed January 30, 1856, 
 the ports open to the Americans were opened also to the Dutch. 
 They were allowed to exercise their religion, and to bring their 
 wives and children to Japan. They were authorized to trade 
 directly with Japanese merchants, and to hold free intercourse 
 at Desima with other foreigners. They, in their turn, under- 
 took to supply the Japanese with a war steamer, and to give 
 them instruction in naval matters. 
 
 In August, 1856, the United States steamer San Jacinto 
 arrived at Simoda, bringing out Mr. Townshend Harris, a mer- 
 chant of New York, who had been appointed consul to Japan ; 
 as it proved, a very judicious selection. A temple near Simoda 
 was appointed for his residence, but the whole circumstances 
 of his reception showed that the Japanese dislike of foreign in- 
 tercourse remained almost as strong as ever. They had taken 
 some steps, however, to execute the treaty. They had built a 
 stone landing-place at Simoda, had brought from the mines 
 several hundred tons of coal, and had constructed a large bazaar 
 for the sale to Americans of Japanese wares. But it was very 
 apparent that Simoda, from its situation, never coultl become a 
 place of much trade ; while the necessity of purchasing through 
 
544 JAPAX. A. D. 1854 1860. 
 
 a Japanese official^ and the low valuation put upon American 
 wares,, as estimated in Japanese currency, were additional 
 obstacles. 
 
 Mr. Harris obtained the confidence and good-will of the au- 
 thorities at Simoda, and succeeded in negotiating a convention, 
 in March 1857, by which American citizens were allowed to 
 reside at Simoda and Hakodade, and to trade at Nangasaki ; and 
 by which, also, it was hoped that the currency difficulty would 
 be arranged. 
 
 Mr. Harris had brought with him a letter from the President 
 to the Emperor, and at length, after much importunity and 
 more than a year's delay, he obtained leave to visit Jedo to 
 deliver it. Jedo is only eighty miles by land from Simoda, 
 yet it took several days to make the journey. Mr. Harris thus 
 describes it in a private letter : 
 
 " My train numbered some one hundred and fifty persons, composed of 
 guards, norrimon-bearers, cooks, grooms, shoe-bearers, cane-bearers, fan- 
 bearers, and last, though not least, a standard-bearer, and a large number 
 of coolies. I had permitted the Japanese to arrange and dress my train 
 according to their ideas of propriety, and what they conceived was due to 
 the representative of the President of the United States. My guards, each 
 with two swords in the girdle, and clad in new silk dresses, as they swelled 
 and strutted about, appeared to be ' mightily uplifted in heart/ while they 
 and my bearers and grooms appeared to have ' broken out ' all over their 
 bodies with * spread eagles/ as the back, breast, and sleeves of their dresses 
 were sprinkled over with the arms of the United States, which were neatly 
 painted on them. I performed the journey partly on horseback, and partly 
 in a norrimon, which is the Japanese name for a palanquin. The Japan- 
 ese norrimon will compare with the celebrated iron cages of Cardinal Balne, 
 of France, in which the poor inmate could neither lie down nor stand up. 
 In the norrimon the Japanese kneel and place their feet close together, and 
 then sit <5n their heels; if they wish to repose themselves they lean for- 
 ward, and rest the chin on their knees, so that the body and limbs form 
 three horizontal folds or piles — a position that they assume and keep 
 without annoyance, from long practice, and from the great flexibility of 
 their joints, but which is almost unattainable by a white man, and is ab- 
 solutely unendurable. 
 
 " I had a norrimon made for me seven feet long, and in it I put a mat- 
 tress and pillows, which made it as comfortable as the Indian palanquin; 
 but, of all the modes of travelling, the camel, the elephant, and the palan- 
 quin are the most fatiguing. 
 
mr. Harris's journey to jedo. 545 
 
 " On the morning of Monday, November 23, 1 started for the long-desired 
 goal of my wishes. Four lads, with small bamboo wands, led the way as 
 harbingers, and their voices sounded quite musical as they sang the Japan- 
 ese words for ' clear the way/ ' clear the way/ ' kneel down/ ' kneel down.' 
 Next followed a Japanese officer on horseback ; then came a large lack- 
 ered tablet, bearing my name and titles in immense Chinese characters. 
 The tablet was supported by two huge transparent lanterns, which bore* 
 similar inscriptions. (When I halted, the tablet was placed in front of my 
 quarters, and at night the lanterns were lighted and hung up over the gate 
 of the house.) Next came a stout fellow, bearing the ' stars and stripes/ 
 with four guards. I followed, either on horseback or in my norrimon, and 
 attended by twelve guards. Next came Mr. Heuskin (interpreter), and 
 after him I do not recollect how it was arranged, except that the Vice- 
 Governor brought up the rear. 
 
 "For the first three days the route was entangled among mountains and 
 deep ravines which compose the peninsula of Idsu. The path (for it could 
 not be called a road) was narrow, and in many places was formed by cut- 
 ting steps in the Fufa rocks, and sometimes it ran over mountains four 
 thousand feet high. On the second day I reached Ugasima, and as I 
 emerged from the gorges of Mount Amagi, I had my first view of 'Fusi 
 Yam a/ the ' Matchless Mountain.' The sight was grand beyond descrip- 
 tion. As viewed from the Temple at Ugasima, the mountain appears to 
 be entirely isolated, and shoots up in a glorious and perfect cone ten thou- 
 sand feet high! It was covered with snow, and in the bright sunlight it 
 glittered like frosted silver. For the first two nights I was lodged in tem- 
 ples, which had been fitted up for me with new bath-rooms, and other 
 appliances to contribute to my comfort. On the evening of the third day 
 I arrived at Missima, a town on the To-ky-do, or great East Road, and from 
 thence to Jedo the road is wide and good. On the great roads of Japan 
 nice buildings are erected for the accommodation of the pi-inces when they 
 travel ; they are called Howjin ; and it was in them that I had my quarters 
 for the remainder of my journey. 
 
 " My first day's journey on the To-ky-do was over the mountain Hacone, 
 which is some four thousand and five hundred feet high. 
 
 " The passage of Mount Hacone was not completed until after nightfall ; 
 but I did not regret being belated, as it afforded me the novel sight of my 
 train brilliantly lighted by a large number of huge bamboo torches. As 
 the train twisted and turned among the descents of the mountain, it looked 
 like the tail of a huge fiery dragon. On reaching the plain I was met by 
 the authorities of the city of Odowara, and a whole army of lanterns, of all 
 imaginable sizes and colors, each being decorated with the arms of its 
 owner, and the whole forming an ensemble that was lively and pleasing. I 
 passed Sunday, the 29th of November, at Kawasaki. From my first arri- 
 val in Japan, up to the present day, I have always refused to transact any 
 business or to travel on Sunday. I soon got the Japanese to understand 
 my motive, and I am sure it has increased their respect for me. 
 
 46* 
 
546 JAPAN. A. D. 1854 1860. 
 
 ' The roads were all repaired, and cleanly swept, on the whole of my route, 
 before! passed; bridges were put in order, and many new ones built; all 
 travel on the road was stopped, so that I did not see those crowds of trav- 
 ellers, priests, nuns, etc., described by Kampfer; the shops in all the towns 
 and villages were closed (except cook-shops and tea-houses), and the inhab- 
 itants, clad in their holiday, clothes, knelt on mats spread in front of their 
 houses; not a sound was heard, nor a gesture indicative of curiosity seen; 
 all was respectful silence. The people were ordered to cast down their eyes 
 as I passed, as I was too high even to be looked at; but this order was 
 only partially obeyed, for the dear daughters of Eve would have a peep, 
 regardless of consequences. The authorities of the towns and villages met 
 me at their boundaries, and saluted me by kneeling and ' knocking head ; ' 
 they then led the way through their little jurisdictions, and took leave by 
 similar prostrations. 
 
 " On Monday, the 30th of November, I made my entry into Jedo. My 
 followers put on their camissimos, or dresses of ceremony, decorated with 
 any quantity of eagles. 
 
 " I should not have known when I passed the line which separates Sina- 
 gana from Jedo, had the spot not been pointed out to me, as the houses 
 form a continuous street for some miles before you reach the actual boun- 
 dary of the city. From the gate by which I entered the city to my quar- 
 ters was about seven miles. -The streets of Jedo are divided into sections 
 of one hundred and twenty yards, by gates and palisades of strong timber. 
 This enables the police to isolate any portion of the city, or any line run- 
 ning through it, and thus prevent the assembling of crowds or mobs. When 
 Ave approached a gate it was opened, and as soon as the rear had passed 
 through it was closed. The gates of all the cross streets were also kept 
 closed. I could see immense crowds beyond the gates, but the people on 
 our actual line of march were those only that occupiect the buildings on 
 the route. Notwithstanding all this, the number that assembled was pro- 
 digious. The centre of the way was kept clear, and the crowd kept back 
 by ropes stretched along each side of the street. The assemblage was 
 composed of men, women and children, of all ranks and conditions — the 
 women being the larger number. I estimated the two lines of people that 
 extended along the way, from my entrance into the city to the place pro- 
 vided for my residence, to have been full three hundred thousand. Yet in 
 all this vast concourse I did not hear a word, except the constant cry of 
 the harbingers, Sdtu, sdtu! 
 
 "You may think it impossible that silence could have been maintained 
 among so large a number of women, but I assure you it was so. 
 
 " The house prepared for me was situated within the fourth circle of the 
 castle, or aristocratic portion of the city, and large enough to accommodate 
 five hundred persons, in the Japanese manner. 
 
 "On my arrival I was warmly welcomed by my good friend the Prince 
 of Sinano, who showed me the various provisions that had been made for 
 my accommodation and comfort, and which included chairs, tables, bed- 
 steads, etc., none of which are used by the Japanese. 
 
AUDIENCE WITH THE EMPEROR. 547 
 
 " The following day the Prince of Tamba visited me in great state. He 
 said he came as a 'special embassador' from the Emperor to congratulate 
 me on my arrival, and to ask after my health. After receiving these com- 
 pliments, and making a suitable reply, the Prince pointed to a large box, 
 which he said was a present to me from his Majesty. I found the box 
 contained five large trays of bon-bons, weighing over one hundred pounds. 
 
 "I subsequently visited the hereditary Prince of Hotta, Chief of the 
 great Council of State and Minister for Foreign Affairs. The visit was a 
 pleasant one, and the arrangements for my audience were completed. I 
 gave the Prince a copy of my intended speech to the Emperor, and before 
 I left he gave a copy of the reply the Emperor would make to me. By 
 this arrangement, the speeches being both translated beforehand, we 
 would be enabled to dispense with the presence of interpreters at the au- 
 dience. On the Monday week after my arrival, I set out for the Palace. 
 My train blazed out in new silk dresses, and my guard wore their breeches 
 rolled up to the middle of the thigh. You must know that the wearing of 
 breeches in Japan is a mark of high rank, or, if worn by an inferior, that 
 he is in the service of one of the highest rank. A new flag, made of Jap- 
 anese crape, was carried before me. This flag is the first foi'eign banner 
 that was ever carried through this great city, and I mean 'to preserve it as 
 a precious relic. The distance from my residence to the Palace was over 
 two miles. On arriving at the bridge over the third moat, or ditch, all my 
 train left their horses and norrimons, and proceeded on foot. I continued 
 in my norrimon, and was carried over three moats, and through as many 
 fortified gateways, up to the gate of the palace itself. I was received at the 
 entrance by two chamberlains, who, having 'knocked head/ conducted 
 me to an apartment where I found a chair for my use. Tea, bon-bons, 
 and other refreshments, were then offered to me. A large 1 number of the 
 princes came to be presented to me. At length I was told the Emperor 
 was ready to receive me. I passed through a large hall, in which some 
 three hundred to four hundred of the high nobles of Japan, all dressed in 
 their court dresses, were kneeling, and as silent and as motionless as stat- 
 ues ; and from this hall I entered the audience-chamber. At this moment 
 a chamberlain called out, in a loud voice, ' Merrican Embassador,' and the 
 Prince of Sinano threw himself down and crawled along as I walked in. 
 Mr. Heusken, my secretary, who carried the President's letter, halted at 
 the entrance; I advanced up the room, making three bows as I proceeded, 
 and halted at the head of two lines of men, who were prostrate on their 
 faces; those on my right were the five members of the Council of State, 
 with the Prince of Bittsu at their head, and those on the left were three 
 brothers of the Emperor. ' 
 
 "His Majesty was seated on a chair placed on a dais, elevated some three 
 feet above the floor of the chamber. He was dressed in yellow silk, and 
 wore a black lackered cap that utterly defies description. After a short 
 pause, I made my address to him; and, after a similar pause, he replied 
 to me in a clear and pleasant voice. When the Emperor had finished, Mr. 
 
548 JAPAN. A.J). 1854 1860. 
 
 Heusken brought the President's letter to me. I removed the silk cover, 
 (striped, red and white), opened the box, and displayed the writing to the 
 Prince of Bittsu, who now stood up. Then, closing the box, I handed it 
 to the Prince, who placed it on a lackered stand, prepared for the purpose. 
 Mr. Heusken having returned to his place, and the Prince being again 
 prostrate, the Emperor bowed to me, smiling pleasantly at the same time. 
 This ended my audience, and I backed out of the room, making three 
 bows as I retired. 
 
 " The usual dress of the Japanese nobles is of silk; but the court dress -is 
 made of a coarse yellow grass-cloth, and for a coronet they wear a black 
 lackered affair that looks like a distracted night-cap. I did not see a single 
 gem, jewel, or ornament of any kind, on the person of the Emperor, or on 
 those of his courtiers, who comprised the great nobility of Japan. 
 
 "From the audience-chamber I was taken to another room, where I 
 found the five great Councillors of State, who, having been presented to 
 me, congratulated me on my audience, and expressed their wonder and 
 astonishment at what they called my ' greatness of heart.' When I asked 
 for an explanation, they said that they were filled with admiration to see 
 me stand erect, look the awful ' Tycoon ' in the face, speak plainly to him, 
 hear his reply — and all this without any trepidation, or any 'quivering 
 of the muscles of the side.' I write all this to let you see that the Japan- 
 ese princes understand the use of court compliments. I was then shown 
 a present of fifteen silken robes from his Majesty, and was taken to a room 
 where a banquet, set out on sixty trays, twelve inches high, was prepared 
 for my single stomach. There was food enough for one hundred hungry 
 men! 
 
 " You must know that the dinner-trays (like the breeches) are a mark of 
 rank in Japan ; "and the rank indicated by the height of the" trays, which 
 vary from three to twelve inches in height. Again, if the trays are lack- 
 ered, it diminishes the honor connected with the actual height of the tray, 
 for it indicates that it can be used on another occasion ; but if it be made 
 of unpainted cypress wood, the honor is complete, for it says, as plain as 
 words can do, ' You are so sublime in your rank that no one can dare to 
 eat from a tray that you have used ! ' My attention was particularly 
 called both to the height of the trays, and to the flattering fact that, ' by a 
 special edict,' they were made of unvarnished wood. You must know 
 that this same dinner had been the subject of grave discussion, both in 
 Simoda and in Jedo. They were very anxious that I should eat at the 
 palace. I replied that I would do so cheerfully, provided a person or per- 
 sons of suitable rank would eat with me; but said that self-respect would 
 forbid my eating at a table where my host or his representative declined 
 to sit down. When I had admired the very neat arrangement of- the ban- 
 quet, I was again asked to sit down. I then said, ' Say to his Majesty 
 that I thank him for his offered entertainment.' At last the whole affair 
 was sent to my quarters, where -I distributed it among my Simoda fol- 
 lowers. 
 
SECOND VISIT TO JEDO — TREATY. 549 
 
 " After the exhibition of the dinner, I was reconducted to the room I first 
 entered, and, after I had drank of the celebrated ' powdered tea/ I left, 
 being conducted to the entrance by the two chamberlains, who knocked 
 head with all the force that was due to one who had ' seen the king, and 
 yet lived.' By the way, I forgot to state that the old formula of an audi- 
 ence, which was ' kneel down/ ' knock head, so that the by-standers can 
 hear your skull crack/ if it ever did exist at the court at Jedo, was not 
 used in my case. A faint request was made to me, at Simoda, that I would 
 kneel, but I told them the request was offensive, and must not be repeated. 
 That ended it. 
 
 " My return to Simoda was on a steamer presented to the Japanese by 
 the Dutch." 
 
 In April, 1858, Mr. Harris returned again to Jedo, and after 
 three months spent in arguing with the Japanese that it would 
 be impossible for them to maintain their policy of isolation, he 
 succeeded in negotiating a new treaty. By this treaty, the port 
 of Kanagawa, a suburb of Jedo, was substituted for Simoda as 
 a place for American trade and residence ; and in 1860, Hiogo, 
 the harbor of the most commercial city of Osaca, was also to 
 be opened to them. American residents were to enjoy religious 
 freedom, and the privilege of direct trade with the Japanese 
 merchants. The right to have an ambassador resident at Jedo 
 was also included ; a position since filled by Mr. Harris himself. 
 
 Within a few weeks after the negotiation of this treaty, Lord 
 Elgin, British commissioner to China and Japan, arrived at 
 Simoda with a considerable British squadron. Mr. Harris 
 went on board his ship, and accompanied him to the Bay of 
 Jedo. On the 26th of August, a treaty was signed with the 
 Japanese by Lord Elgin, on the basis of the American treaty. 
 It contained the additional provision, — of which we also have 
 the benefit to render the clause of our treaty giving us all priv- 
 ileges bestowed on other nations, — that no export duty should 
 be charged higher than five per cent, ad valorem, and no im- 
 port duty higher than twenty per cent. ; certain articles, includ- 
 ing cotton and woollen goods, to be admitted at five per cent. On 
 the 9th of October, a similar treaty was signed with Baron 
 Gros, who had visited Jedo as French commissioner. Similar 
 privileges, it is understood, are granted to the Dutch and Rus- 
 sians. 
 
550 JAPAN. A. D. 1854 — I860. . 
 
 With, the signing of these treaties the Japanese authorities 
 may be considered as having yielded the point of the re- 
 establishment- of foreign intercourse. But a great difference 
 of opinion, as to this policy, is understood still to exist among 
 the nobles and princes of the empire ; and it is not impossible 
 that these concessions to foreigners may lead to internal com- 
 motions. 
 
 By one of the articles of this new treaty, negotiated by Mr. 
 Harris, the Japanese agreed to send an embassy to Washington, 
 as bearers of the Emperor's ratification. The fulfilment of this 
 promise was for some time delayed, partly, perhaps, by reason 
 of the caution and slowness characteristic of Japanese policy, 
 but principally, it is supposed, on account of the strong opposi- 
 tion of a large party of the princes and nobles to the new 
 scheme of foreign intercourse. At length, however, on the 
 27th of February, 1860, the ambassadors, three in number, 
 with a suite of seventy-three persons, embarked on board the 
 United States steamer, the Powhattan, the American govern- 
 ment having undertaken to convey them to the United States, 
 and to carry them back again. The Candinamarrah, a war 
 steamer of two hundred and fifty tons, built for the Japanese 
 by the Dutch, and manned with a Japanese crew of seventy 
 men, arrived at San Francisco on the 14th of March, after a 
 passage of forty days from the Bay of Jedo, to give notice of 
 the approach of the ambassadors. The Powhattan, after touch- 
 ing at the Sandwich Islands, reached Panama on the 25th of 
 April. The ambassadors, with their attendants, were imme- 
 diately conveyed on the railroad to Aspinwall, where, the next 
 day, they embarked on board the U. S. steamer Roanoke, 
 lying there to receive them. The Poanoke sailed for New 
 York, but on arriving at Sandy Hook she was ordered to Nor- 
 folk, it having, been determined that the embassy should be 
 first received at Washington. At Norfolk the Japanese were 
 transferred to the steamer Philadelphia. They reached Wash- 
 ington on the 14th of May, disembarked at the Navy Yard, 
 and were then conveyed to quarters which had been provided 
 
JAPANESE EMBASSY ARRIVE AT WASHINGTON. 551 
 
 for them at Willard's Hotel. To protect them against imposi- 
 tion, and to provide for their comfort and security, three navy 
 officers who had visited Japan were appointed to the general 
 oversight of the embassy while it remained in this country. 
 On the 14th they visited General Cass, the Secretary of State, 
 and on the next day had a formal audience from the President. 
 Though received as ministers plenipotentiary, their powers ap- 
 peared to be limited to an exchange of the ratifications of the 
 treaty, and to obtaining information as to the relative value of 
 Japanese and foreign coins, — a point which still remained un- 
 settled in Japan, and was the occasion of much complaint on 
 the part of the foreign residents. 
 
 The Japanese remained in Washington till the 8th of June, 
 spending their time in visits to the various public buildings, and 
 a good deal of it in shopping, for which many of them seemed 
 to have a great fancy. After passing through Baltimore, where 
 they remained one night only, they spent a week in Philadel- 
 phia, where the Mint and its processes were special objects of 
 interest. From Philadelphia they went on to New York, 
 where they were received at the Battery by an escort of five 
 or six thousand men of the New York militia, and conveyed 
 through an immense crowd to the quarters which had been 
 provided for them at the Metropolitan Hotel. Here they re- 
 mained for two weeks, and on the 1st of July embarked on 
 board the United States steam frigate Niagara, to return to 
 Japan by the Cape of Good Hope, being thus the first of their 
 nation to make the circumnavigation of the globe. 
 
 The time of their stay in this country was limited, by express 
 orders brought with them from Japan, and they declined the 
 numerous invitations which they received to visit other cities, 
 and also an excursion which the government had planned to 
 the Palls of Niagara. The short time they had to spend was 
 no doubt more advantageously employed by restricting their 
 observations to two or three places. Of the seventy-six persons, 
 of which the embassy and its suite were composed, forty-six 
 filled the position of attendants or servants to the remaining 
 
552 JAPAN. — A. D. 1854 1860. 
 
 twenty, though some of them, directly attached to the persons 
 of the three ambassadors, were far above the rank of ordinary 
 menials. The three ambassadors, though they bore the title 
 of princes, were understood not to belong to the small class of 
 hereditary nobles, but to owe their titles to the position? which 
 they hold in the Emperor's service. Among the seventeen 
 persons next in rank to the ambassadors were a treasurer, hav- 
 ing charge of the finances of the embassy, — though, except 
 as to such purchases as they made, this office was a sinecure ; 
 a marshal, so to speak, charged with the oversight and govern- 
 ment of the servants ; several secretaries, interpreters, and 
 doctors, and others who might be called attaches. There was 
 no priest or chaplain, nor any appearance of any formal wor- 
 ship. The three ambassadors affected a good deal of reserve ; 
 the others were inclined to sociability ; but their ignorance of 
 the language, and the necessity that all communications should 
 undergo a double interpretation from English into Dutch, and 
 then into Japanese, or vice versa, was a great obstacle to the 
 communication of ideas. 
 
 In New York, besides their visits to public places and insti- 
 tutions, the more curious of the Japanese were taken to visit a 
 number of large manufactories of various kinds, in several of 
 which they exhibited a good deal of interest. .They made a 
 good many purchases, and received a great many presents, the 
 manufacturers of various articles hoping in this way to open a 
 market for their wares in Japan. 
 
 Though a good deal pressed upon at times by over-curious 
 crowds, their reception was everywhere of the most kindly 
 character, and can hardly fail to leave upon them a strong im- 
 pression of American good-will. 
 
 Since the negotiation of the recent treaties, a number of 
 American and Englishmen, agents of mercantile houses, have 
 established themselves at the open ports. A few cargoes of 
 Japanese products have been shipped, but the trade is still in 
 its infancy, and the extent to which it can be carried remains 
 very problematical. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 * Note A. 
 
 THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 
 
 The Japanese language has been often represented as a dialect of the 
 Chinese, or, at least, as very closely related to it. This opinion, though 
 totally unfounded, originated in the fticts that not only the Chinese written 
 character is understood and extensively used in Japan, but that the Chinese 
 spoken tongue, with a peculiar Japanese pronunciation, consisting princi- 
 pally in the suppression of nasals, and the softening of some consonants, is 
 in general use as a learned language, holding very much the same relation 
 to the vernacular that Latin did two or three centuries ago to the vulgar 
 tongues of the different European nations. 
 
 The Japanese, however, have both a spoken and a written language of 
 their own, totally distinct from every other known language, polysyllabic, 
 and differing much more from the Chinese than any European tongue does 
 from the Latin. There are thus in Japan not only two written, but two 
 spoken languages, and in the words and phrases reported -by travellers in 
 that country as Japanese there' is a complete confusion of these two tongues. 
 The same thing, indeed, is not uncommon with the Japanese themselves^ 
 who often employ Chinese and Japanese terms indifferently, though there are 
 tases in which usage requires the one, in exclusion of the other. 
 
 For a long time the Japanese, it is probable, had no writing, except the 
 Chinese characters. Books in these characters, many of them imported from 
 China, and others printed in Japan, still abound there ; but these cannot 
 »roperly be considered as expressions of the Japanese language. Those who 
 ire able to read these, understand the spoken as well as the written Chinese, 
 jr, if there is any exception to this, in such cases the Chinese characters 
 standing for ideas (or, more correctly, for words expressing ideas) will be 
 read into Japanese by one who knows their significance, though not the 
 Chinese sounds to which they correspond, just as a Frenchman, ignorant of 
 Arabic, will read into French a table of logarithms expressed in Arab ic figures, 
 or as an Englishman who can read French, though ignorant of its pronunoi- 
 
 47 
 
554 APPENDIX. 
 
 ation, will understand it, and even read it into English, though if read tc 
 him by a Frenchman it would be totally unintelligible. This process of 
 reading Chinese characters into Japanese is greatly facilitated by the fact 
 that, though completely different in its words from the Chinese, the 
 Japanese language, in general, follows, as is the case with the Mongol and 
 Mandchu, and many other tongues of Eastern Asia, the same inverse order 
 of construction, placing the attribute before the subject, the adjective before 
 the substantive, the adverb before the verb, the accessory before the princi- 
 pal, the modifying expression before the expression modified, &c. 
 
 There is, however, a certain difficulty in representing the Japanese lan- 
 guage by these Chinese characters, because Japanese words have many in- 
 flections which are unknown in Chinese, and for which the Chinese writing 
 has no symbol. 
 
 The missionary monks who transported from India to China, and from 
 China to Japan, the Buddhist system of religion, carried with them, also, 
 the Sanscrit language and the Dewanagari or Sanscrit alphabet, and it waa 
 probably to them that the Japanese were indebted, if not for the introduction 
 of the Chinese writing, at least for the syllabary with which the vernacul.tr 
 language is written. This syllabary is limited to forty-seven characters, tl e 
 precise number of the Sanscrit letters, though the number of syllabic sound? 
 represented is increased to a hundred and forty-four by the use of three ad- 
 ditional signs, to be presently described. 
 
 The syllabic sounds expressed by these forty-seven signs, arranged in per- 
 pendicular columns, according to the Japanese method (except that the 
 Japanese begin at the right), are twice given below ; first, according to 
 Klaproth ; second, according to Siebold. The discrepancies will be explained 
 by the remark of Siebold, that the sound which he indicates by I is, in fact, 
 a sound between I and r, inclining in some provinces more to the Z, in others, 
 as, for instance, at Jedo, more to r. The same is the case also with the 
 letters h and/. The y in Klaproth's column indicates and better represents 
 to an English eye the same sound with the/ in Siebold's. The vowel sounds 
 are those respectively of France and Germany. The ou and u indicate the 
 same .sound as that of our English u. The i represents our English e ; the 
 e our English a in fate ; the a our English a in far. 
 
 i i 
 
 ri li 
 
 re le 
 
 i wi 
 
 ko 
 
 ko 
 
 mi mi 
 
 ro lo 
 
 nou nu 
 
 so so 
 
 no no 
 
 ye 
 
 e 
 
 si si 
 
 fa ha 
 
 rou ru 
 
 tsou tsu 
 
 wo 
 
 te 
 
 te 
 
 ye we 
 
 ni ni 
 
 o wo 
 
 ne ne 
 
 kou ku 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 fi hi 
 
 fo ho 
 
 wa wa 
 
 na na 
 
 ya ja 
 
 sa 
 
 sa 
 
 mo mo 
 
 fe he 
 
 ka ka 
 
 ra la 
 
 ma ma 
 
 ki 
 
 ki 
 
 se se 
 
 to to 
 
 yo jo 
 
 mou mu 
 
 ke ke 
 
 you ju 
 
 sou su 
 
 tsi tsi 
 
 ta ta 
 
 ou u 
 
 fou fu 
 
 me 
 
 me 
 
 
 The syllables ka, ki, 
 
 ku, ke, ko, 
 
 are 'occasionally softened into ga, g 
 
 gu, ge, go 
 
 ; sa, si, su, 
 
 se, so, into 
 
 za, zi, zu, 
 
 ze, zo 
 
 ; ta, 
 
 tsi, tsu, t 
 
 and to, into da, dsi, dsu, du, do, which change is indicated by a mark, or 
 accent, affixed to the characters that represent them. A similar change 
 
JAPANESE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 555 
 
 (especially in foreign words) of ha, hi, hu, he, ho (written by Remusat fa, fi 
 fe, fo, fu), sometimes into the softer sounds, ba, be, bi, bu, bo, and some- 
 times into the harder sounds, pa, pi, pu, pe, po, is indicated by another 
 mark. In writing foreign words, especially from the Chinese, an additional 
 character, indicating n or m final, is also employed, which sound seems, 
 however, to be much oftener introduced into the spoken than the written 
 language. Just as we say A B C, this collection of syllables is called, from 
 the first three, the i-ro-fa, or i-ro-ha. 
 
 Generally, in composition, the syllables retain their full sound ; but often 
 the vowel part is contracted, or elided, especially at the close of a word. 
 Thus, all syllables, ending in i, followed, in composition, by syllables begin- 
 ning with?/ (otherwise j), lose the final i : tsi-ya being pronounced ts'ya : 
 ni-yo, n'o, &c. Mi-sa is sounded mis' ; mit-si, mits' ; fu-tsu, frits' ; ma- 
 tsu, mats' ; ku-wa-u, k'u ; ko-ko-ju, kok'f ' ; fi-ya-ka, f'yak' ; si-ya-tsu, 
 s'yats'. The syllable tsu in the middle of a word, loses its own sound 
 and takes that of the syllable ; that follows ; thus , i-tsu-ki becomes ikki 
 i-tsu-si, issi, &c. Where the final u sound is elided, the antecedent conso. 
 nant sound is, as it were, reduplicated, especially in the infinitive of verbs : 
 of which the termination isalways in u ; or if that preceding consonant be 
 k, an/" sound is added to it ; thus, i-do-ru becomes idorr' ; ma-ku, makf ' ; 
 to-bu, tobb', to indicate which reduplication a fourth sign is employed. 
 
 As the Japanese language is made up so largely of vowels, it ought to be 
 musical, and, as it is composed of so limited a number of syllables, it might 
 be supposed to be easy to represent the sound of Japanese words by Euro- 
 pean letters. But, in doing this, every writer, from the Jesuit missionaries 
 downward, has been inconsistent, not only with others, but with himself. 
 In addition to the difficulties growing out of the elisions, there is another in 
 the peculiarities of the Japanese sounds.* 
 
 To represent the forty-seven syllables, of which, with the variations above 
 stated, their language is composed, the Japanese appear first to have em- 
 ployed a like number of perfect Chinese characters, chosen sometimes, per- 
 haps, with reference to their sound in Chinese, but in some cases, at least, 
 with reference to the sound of the corresponding Japanese word Thus, for 
 
 * "The Japanese pronunciation," says Golownin, — who was in the constant habit of hearing 
 it for two years, during which he acquired a good knowledge of the language spoken, though 
 not allowed to learn to read it, — M is excessively difficult for us Europeans. There arc sylla- 
 bles which are not pronounced like te or de, but something between them, which we are 
 quite unable to produce. In the same manner, there are middle sounds, between be and/e, 
 jse and sche, ye and che, che and se. No European would succeed in pronouncing the 
 Japanese word for fire. I have studied it for two years, but in vain ; when pronounced by 
 the Japanese, it seemed to sound likely?, c/«°, /m, fsi, pronounced through the teeth 5 but, 
 however we turned and twisted our mouths about, the Japanese persisted in their 'not 
 right ; ' and such words are very numerous in the Japanese language." Siebold says that 
 the spoken dialects of different provinces vary greatly. The attempts of Europeans to repre- 
 sent Japanese words, often produce words which, on paper, have very little resemblance. 
 Who would suppose that Oxu and Mouts were different attempts to represent the.-sanie. 
 word — the name of the north-easternmost and largest province of Japan ? 
 
556 APPENDIX. 
 
 instance, the syllable mi meaning female, the Chinese symbol for female wai 
 employed to represent that sound. 
 
 To this syllabary appears to have succeeded another, in which the Chinese 
 characters employed are considerably contracted. In a third, that in ordi- 
 nary use, called Hira-kana, or Fira-kana, easy, or woman's writing, the 
 Chinese form of the symbols has quite disappeared. The fourth, called 
 Kata-kana, is very easy, distinct, and compact. Fifteen of the symbols are 
 Chinese characters still in use, among the simplest which the Chinese writ- 
 ing affords. The others are parts of characters arbitrarily taken. The Jap- 
 anese, who call this " man's writing," have an idea that it is the oldest of 
 their syllabary methods ; but had it been so, the other never would have come 
 into use ; it is evidently the most recent of the whole — a kind of short- 
 hand — and is principally used for notes and comments. Placed under above, 
 or side by side, the Chinese characters, with which all Japanese books abound, 
 these Kata-kana syllables indicate the corresponding Japanese word, 
 the inflections which, though numerous in Japanese, are wanting in 
 Chinese, or, in the case of proper names, their pronunciation. No books 
 are printed in it exclusively. Japanese books, for common use, present, 
 indeed, a strange intermixture of the cursive, • scrambling Kata-kana, in 
 which each syllable has quite a number of representations, with Chinese 
 characters more or less numerous, which may or may not be explained by an 
 added paraphi*ase in ^Kata-kana ; and which, when once so explained, are 
 often repeated without any explanation. Thus, the printing of a short Jap- 
 anese novel, accomplished at Vienna, under the editorial care of Dr. Pfiz- 
 maier — the first book in the Japanese character ever printed in Europe — 
 required a fount of four hundred and eighty-one types for the Japanese syl- 
 labary, besides two hundred and twenty-seven more for the Chinese charac- 
 ters introduced into it. 
 
 The higher the pretensions of a Japanese writer the more Chinese he inter 
 mingles. Hence, to read Japanese books, a knowledge of Chinese is abso 
 lutely necessary ; and hence it happens that Chinese scholars, like Remu 
 sat, without knowing Japanese, or, like Klaproth, by knowing a little of it, 
 may be able to get at least some general idea of a Japanese book, especially 
 if it be a very learned one. This, however, is a precarious resource ; for 
 the Japanese not only sometimes use the Chinese characters in peculiar 
 senses, they have varied their forms, and have even introduced some new 
 ones of their own. 
 
 This mixed sort of writing seems to be easily enough mastered by the Jap 
 anese themselves, among whom book-printing from wooden plates, and the 
 art of reading, have been common from our earliest knowledge of them. But 
 it puts serious obstacles in the way of learners from abroad, and gave occa- 
 sion to the Jesuit missionaries to suspect that it had been invented by the 
 devil himself, on purpose to impede the spread of the gospel. 
 
 It is to its Chinese element that we are mainly indebted for such knowl- 
 edge as we have yet obtained of the literature of Japan. Though bo long 
 
JAPANESE LANGUAGE AND LHJRATURE. 557 
 
 written and printed, and abounding in books, and once familiarly spoken 
 and read by a considerable number of Europeans, and though a considerable 
 number of books in it exist in European libraries, yet scarcely two or three 
 European scholars are to be found who make any pretensions to be able to 
 read Japanese, notwithstanding that, for two centuries and a half, there have 
 not been wanting European helps to its acquisition. 
 
 Four Japanese grammars have been published by missionaries ; that of 
 Alvarez, in Latin and Japanese (De institutione Grammatica libri Hi.; cum 
 Versione Japonia), printed at Amacusa in 1593 ; that of Rodriguez, in 
 Portuguese (Arte du Lingua de Japan), printed at Nagasaki in 1604 ; that 
 of Collado, in Latin (Ars Grammatica Japonicce Linguae), at Rome, 1632 ; 
 and that of Oyangusen, in Spanish (Arte du la Lingua Japonica) , printed 
 at Mexico in 1738, its author, who was a Franciscan friar, having ended his 
 days there, after having been a missionary in Cochin-China, and superin- 
 tendent of two convents in the Philippines, where it would appear that some 
 knowledge of the Japanese was long preserved. 
 
 All these grammars, composed rather with a view to Japanese as spoken 
 than as written, represent the sounds in Roman letters, and attempt to apply 
 grammatical ideas and forms derived from the Greek and Latin to a language 
 of a totally different structure, thus very superfluously complicating and ob- < 
 scuring a subject difficult enough in itself. These books are also exceedingly 
 rare, except that of Collado, which is both the shortest and the worst. Rod- 
 riguez prepared at Macao, in 1620, an abridgment of his grammar, which 
 remained, however, in manuscript till 1825, when, with some omissions, it was 
 printed by the Asiatic Society, at Paris, in a French version, with an introduc- 
 tion by M. Abel Remusat, the distinguished Chinese scholar ; to which, the 
 next year, was added a supplement, by Baron G. de Humbolt, containing an 
 account of the grammar of Oyangusen, and some observations on his points 
 of agreement and disagreement, with Rodriguez, and on the Japanese 
 language generally. Siebold has also published in Latin, in the transactions 
 of the Dutch Academy at Batavia, in 1826, an Epitome of the Japanese lan- 
 guage (Epitome Linguae Japonicce) , and, more recently, an introduction to 
 the study of Japanese books (Isagoge in Biblothecum Japonicum et studium 
 Librarum Japonicum). 
 
 Of dictionaries, or vocabularies, there are one in Latin, Portuguese and 
 Japanese, a thick quarto of near a thousand pages, Amacusa, 151)5 ; a vocab- 
 ulai*y in Japanese and Portuguese, Nagasaki, 1606 ; one in Spanish ( Vocab- 
 ulario de Japon), Manilla, 1630; all these exceedingly rare; Callado's 
 Thesaurus, a small Latin vocabulary, Rome, 1632 ; and Medhurst's Eng- 
 lish and Japanese vocabulary, Batavia, 1830, 8vo, pp. 341, containing about 
 seven thousand Japanese words, compiled by the help of Chinese-Japanese 
 and Japanese-Dutch dictionaries, printed in Japan. Siebold's Thesaurus 
 (Wa Kan Won Si-ki Sio-gen Ziako, Thesaurus Lingu.e Japonic^ sen 
 illustratio omnium, quae libris receptee sunt verborum ac dictionvm Lo* 
 ouelcc tarn Japonicce quam Sinensis) is but a mere transcript of a Chinese- 
 
 47* 
 
558 APPENDIX. 
 
 Japanese work, containing a little more than twenty thousand words, with 
 explanations chiefly in Chinese, and an arrangement according to subjects, 
 which renders it, as a dictionary, almost useless. A dictionary, which prom- 
 ises to be much more complete, as well as useful, is now in the course of 
 publication at Vienna, by Pfizmaier, already mentioned. 
 
 The Japanese have learned men far better acquainted with the languages 
 of Europe, Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and especially Dutch, 
 than Europeans are with the Japanese. In fact, the Dutch may be said to 
 have, in some respects, of late years, taken rank of the Chinese, as the 
 learned language of Japan; and to facilitate the study of it, at least one large 
 Dutch- Japanese Dictionary has been published there. 
 
 The nouns in the Japanese language have no discrimination of gender or 
 number, though sometimes for the plural the word is repeated. To dis- 
 tinguish the gender of animals, the words male and female are added to 
 them, as wo-inou, male dog, me-inou, female dog. The cases are indicated 
 by particles suffixed.* The adjectives (like ours) have neither gender nor 
 number, and are always placed before the noun they qualify. The personal 
 pronouns have no distinction of gender, nor are there any relative pronouns. 
 The prepositions, instead of going before, come after the cases they govern. 
 *The present indicative and the infinitive of verbs are the same, and end 
 always in u. The perfect indicative is formed by changing the u into i, and 
 adding ta, as kaku, kakita ; the future by changing the u into o, and adding 
 u, as koku, kokou. The imperative is formed by changing the final u into e, 
 as koku, koke. There are no changes for number or person. The tenses of 
 the conjunctive mood and all the other modifications of the verb are formed 
 by nouns of action, with an indication of time, which may be compared to 
 Latin gerunds, and which are construed with particles, as in .Mandchu and 
 Mongol. There is also a separate form of conjugation when the verb is 
 used negatively. 
 
 Both verbs, nouns and pronouns, undergo certain modifications indic- 
 ative of humility on the one part, and superiority on the other, by reason of 
 the relative rank of the party speaking and the party spoken to. " To express 
 honor, or to indicate humility," says Rodriguez in his grammar, " two sorts 
 of particles are used ; one kind attached to the name it is wished to honor 
 or humilitate, and the other to honorific or humiliating words. There are also 
 words which, without any particle annexed, express respect or humility. In 
 speaking- with any person, a certain degree of honor or respect ought always 
 to be expressed proportioned to that person's rank, except, indeed, in speak- 
 ing to one's son, or servant, or to one of the lowest of the people. Even the 
 absent must always be spoken of in the terms appropriate to their rank. In 
 speaking of two or more persons, both of consideration, but of whom one far 
 
 * Thus, for the nominative we have^Zo, or the man ; or, sometimes, Jito-ga, or fito-ha 
 (the particles ga and ha being frequently prefixed to the nominative, with the fo ce, as Rod 
 riguez says, of the definite article in the case of ha),Jito-no, of the mun, Jit o-ni, to the man, 
 fito-wo, or jito-wa, man in the accusative or objective case ; Jito-yori, or Jltc <kara, witb 
 tne man. 
 
JAPANESE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 55S> 
 
 passes the other in dignity, — as when Jesus Christ and John the Baptist, • 
 or Christ and his apostles, are spoken of in the same sentence, — there must be 
 added to the names of the persons of lesser rank both a honorific particle to 
 mark the speaker's respect for them, and at the same time a particle of 
 humility to indicate their inferiority to the other. In speaking of one's self 
 it is usual to employ a particle of humility, except, indeed, in familiar and 
 domestic conversation, in which simple or neutral words are used." Thi3 
 peculiarity of their diction, no doubt, has an intimate connection with that 
 scrupulous politeness for which the Japanese are distinguished, and is prob- 
 ably the source of the discrepancy in the missionary grammars as to the per- 
 sonal pronouns. 
 
 Rodiriguez, in his grammar, enumerates the following Japanese writings : 
 1. Uta and Renga, poems. 2. Mai, historical incidents, theatrically repx*e- 
 sented, with musical accompaniments. 3. Sosi, histories and lives of their 
 great personages (also intended, apparently, to be sung). 4. Sagheo, lives 
 of saints. 5. Monogatari, histories, entertaining and instructive narratives, 
 in prose. 6. Taifeki, history written in a graver style. 7. Laws and 
 customs. 
 
 Of the Monogatari, above-mentioned, we may obtain some notion from a 
 brief statement of the contents of three of them, mentioned in the treatise on 
 marriage ceremonies, of which Titsingh has given a translation, as proper 
 to form part of the woman's marriage outfit. These ar*e, Ize Monogatari, 
 " by Ize, a female attendant of one of the wives of the Dairi, showing how a 
 certain Mari Firu had lived in adultery with Nisio-no-Kisaki, one of the 
 wives of the Dairi, which, to his indelible disgrace, was published in 
 a great number of books ;" Gensi Monogatari, or " History of Gensi-no- 
 Kami, a kinsman of one of the Dairies, containing an account of his adven- 
 tures in several countries;" and Jeigawa Monogatari, "History of a 
 Spendthrift, from which may be drawn useful moral precepts of economy." 
 Rodiriguez, who mentions also the two first of the above, specifies, as 
 among the best of these writings, the Feike Monogatari, the story of the civil 
 wars between the families of Fieke and Gundsi, and of the downfall of the 
 Sioguns of the family of Feike, — an event which fills a great place in Jap- 
 anese legendary history. This latter work is also mentioned by Kampfer, as 
 is also the Osaca Monogatari (of which he brought home with him both the 
 original and a translation) , giving an account of the civil war which followed 
 the death of Taiko-Sama, and the elevation of Jesi-Jas to the supreme power. 
 
 In this class of Monogatari must also be placed " The Forms of the Pass- 
 ing World ; in Six Folding Screens," translated by Dr. Pfizmaier, and of 
 wh;oh an analysis is given in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, 
 vol. II. 
 
 Of their histories we have a specimen in the JVipon odai itsi ran, of which, 
 as translated by the labor of Titsingh and Klaproth, an account is given in 
 p. 423 of the text. 
 
 The Uta consist of distiches complete and perfect in themselves. Th# 
 
560 APPENDIX. 
 
 first Terse is composed ol three feet, of which the first and last have five syl- 
 lables, and the middle one seven syllables. The second verse consists of two 
 feet of seven syllables each. It is a great beauty for these distiches to bear 
 a double signification. Rodriguez gives the following specimen, supposed to 
 be the utterance of a mother weeping for her children : 
 
 " Wakete fuku, kaye kosa ukere, fana tomoni 
 Tsirade kono fawa, nado no kururon." 
 
 Kaye signifies death and wind, ko, tree and son, and fawa mother and leaf. 
 Take the first senses of these words and the distich will signify, " cruel 
 wind, which, spending thy breath only on my roses, has uprooted them, yet 
 has left the leaves on the trees ! " Take the other senses, and the meaning 
 is, " cruel death, which has struck down my son, while it has spared his 
 wretched mother ! " 
 
 The poems called renga, composed in Chinese only, may extend to a hun- 
 dred or a thousand verses, each verse dependent (as the name renga implies) 
 upon that which immediately precedes it, or at least upon some word in it. 
 These poems are all didactic ; they have no narrative poems ; Rodriguez 
 mentions, however, that the popular prose observes a certain rhythm which 
 renders it very harmonious, and this corresponds with what Golownin 
 states of their chant-like manner of reading. 
 
 Note B. 
 
 JAPANESE NAMES. 
 
 The following curious statements on this subject are drawn chiefly from 
 Rodriguez's Japanese Grammar : The Japanese take successively many sorts 
 of names, and change them at different epochs of their lives. They are, 1. 
 Names designating the individual (corresponding to our Christian names, 
 and to the surnames, or names of addition, of the Romans). 2. Family 
 names, common to all the individuals composing a family, or descended from 
 it. . 3. Names indicative of rank or office. 
 
 I. The names of the first sort, taken at different epochs, are five. 1. 
 Azona, that given by one's parents at birth, generally that of some animal, 
 or of something long-lived, or thought to be of good omen. When the 
 individual employs this name to designate himself, he adds to the par- 
 ticle mar on. When others use it (unless honorific particles are joined 
 with it), instead of maron the particle dono is added. 2. Kemio or 
 Karina, — the name of the adult man, taken when girded with the sword, 
 and bestowed by some distinguished person who acts the part, as it were, 
 of god-father. This is retained till superseded by some official or relig- 
 ious name. 3. JVanori, or Yatmio, a kind of personal designation pecu- 
 liar to nobles and the great, employed by them in signing papers, along 
 with their Kemio, and the.r name of office. They are all formed of eighty 
 
JAPANESE NAMES. 561 
 
 two woi'ds, combined together two and two ; and in some families the usage 
 is, that all of the same family name should employ in the formation of their 
 nanori some one of these eighty-two words, specially consecrated to the use 
 of that family. Thus the principal chiefs of the family of Feike call them- 
 selves Tadamori, whence all those of the same descent take the word mori 
 into their nanori. So princes accord to their courtiers, and great persons 
 to their dependents, the favor of putting the last syllable of the name of the 
 superior at the commencement of the name of the inferior. 4. Bozu, Dogo, 
 or Fomio — the religious name, assumed (as in European monasteries) on 
 shaving the head, withdrawing from the world, and turning bonze. 5. Wo- 
 kurina, a name given especially to princes and the great, after death. 
 Names of this sort given to the Dairi terminate in tenwo or mikado. Those 
 of the great lords in jidono ; those of the inferior lords mjetigiornon, and those 
 of princesses in jengioni. 
 
 II. Family names are either derived (as commonly in Europe) from some 
 place of which the lordship is in the family, or from some event. There are 
 in Japan eighty families or stocks (something, it would seem, like the Scotch 
 clans), of which four are 'particularly illustrious, including those of Ghenji 
 and Feiji ; and from these eighty stocks all the nobles claim to be descended. 
 But these family names are not peculiar to people of high rank ; they are 
 borne by all not of the very lowest class (by all, px^obably, entitled to the 
 privilege of wearing two swords). The chief of the family joins the particle 
 dono immediately to the family name. Thus, the prince of Arima is called 
 Arimadono ; the prince of Omura, Omuradono. The others write the fam 
 ily name first, and after it their personal name, with the particle dono an- 
 nexed. The term sama, meaning lord, seems also to be used much in the 
 same way with the terms of corresponding meaning in the languages of Eu- 
 rope, only appended to the name instead of being prefixed. 
 
 III. Names of. office are derived either from the particular province of 
 which one is the governor, or from one's place in the general administration. 
 Thus, those princes having the title kami, add that to their family name with 
 the intervention of the particle no, as Buygen-no-Kami. Most Japanese dig- 
 nities being imitated from China, have Chinese as well as Japanese designa- 
 tions. 
 
 The following additional illustration of this curious subject is from Thun- 
 berg: 
 
 " The name of each family and individual is used in Japan in a very dif- 
 ferent manner from what it is in Europe. The family name of the Japanese 
 remains unchanged, but is never used in daily conversation or in the ordi- 
 nary course of life, but only when they sign any writings. There is, likewise, 
 this singularity in the affair, that the family name is not put after, but 
 always before, the adscititious name, in like manner as in botany, where the 
 generic name of a plant always precedes the specific. The adscititious or 
 adopted name is that by which they are addressed, and this is changed sev 
 oral times in the course of their lives. As soon as a child is born it receives 
 
562 APPENDIX. 
 
 from the parents a certain name, which, if a son, he keeps till he arrives at 
 vears of maturity. At that period it is changed. If afterwards he obtains an 
 office, he again changes his name ; and if, in process of time, he is advanced 
 to other offices, the same change always takes place ; and some, but espe- 
 cially emperors and princes, have a new name given them after their death. 
 The names of women are less subject to change, and are frequently taken 
 from certain beautiful flowers. Titles are given to place-men of a superior 
 order on entering on their employments ; and to the chief of them various 
 names of honor are added by the Dairi." 
 
 Note C. 
 
 USB OP FIRE-ARMS IN THE EAST. 
 
 Even the inhabitants of southern India, notwithstanding the long inter- 
 course carried on with them by Arab traders from the Persian Gulf and the 
 Red Sea, and the invasions of their country by Mahometans from the north, 
 seem to have been mainly indebted for their first possession of fire-arms to Eu- 
 ropeans ; as witness the following extract from Rickard Eden's translation, 
 first published in 1576, of the " Navigations and Voyages of Lewis Vertoma- 
 nus, Gentleman, of the city of Rome, to the Regions of Arabia, Egypt, Persia, 
 Syria, Ethiopia, and East India, both within and without the river Ganges, 
 &c, in the year of our Lord, 1503," contemporary, that is, with the ear- 
 liest Portuguese expeditions : " Entering into the city of Calicut, we found 
 ihere two Christians, born in the city of Milan ; the one named John Maria, 
 the other Peter Antonio. These were jewellers, and came from Portugal 
 with the king's license to buy precious stones. When I had found these 
 men I rejoiced more than I am able to express. At our first meeting them, 
 seeing them to be white men (for we went naked, after the manner of the 
 inhabitants), I asked them if they were Christians. They said yea. 
 Then said I that I was also a Christian, by the grace of God. Then, taking 
 me by my hand, they brought me to their house, where, for joy of our meet- 
 ing, we could scarcely satisfy ourselves with tears, embracing and kissing ; 
 for it seemed now to me a strange thing to hear men speak mine own lan- 
 guage, or to speak it myself. Shortly after, I asked them if they were in 
 favor with the king of Calicut. We are, said they, in great favor with him, 
 and very familiar. Then again I asked them what they were minded to do. 
 We desire, said they, to return to our country, but we know not the means 
 how. Then, said I, return the same way that you came. Nay, said they, 
 that may not be ; for we are fled from the Portugals, because we have made 
 many pieces of great ordinance and other guns for the king of Calicut, and 
 therefore we have good cause to fear ; and now especially, for that the navy 
 of Portugal will shortly be here. I answered that if I might escape to the 
 city of Canonor, I doubted not but that I would get their pardon of the gov 
 
FERNAM MENDEZ PINTO. 563 
 
 ernor of the navy. There is small hope of mercy, said they, we are so 
 famous and well known to many other kings in the way, which favor the 
 Portugals, and lay wait to take us. In which their talk I perceived how 
 fearful a thing is a guilty conscience, and called to remembrance the saying 
 of the poet : 
 
 ' Multa male timeo, qui feci multa proterve.'. 
 
 That is, 'I fear much evil because I have done much evil.' For they had 
 not only made many such pieces of artillery for the infidels, to the great dam- 
 age of Christians, and contempt of the holy name of Christ and his religion, 
 but had also taught the idolaters both the making and use of them ; and at 
 my being there I saw them give a model or mould to certain idolaters, where- 
 by they might make brazen pieces, of such bigness that one of them may 
 receive the charge of a hundred and five tankards (cantoros) of powder. At 
 the same time, also, there was a Jew, which, had made a very fair brigan- 
 tine, and four great pieces of artillery of iron. But God shortly afterwards 
 gave him his due reward ; for, when he went to wash him in the river, he 
 was drowned." 
 
 Nor did the two Christians escape much better. The Portuguese com- 
 mander agreed to pardon them ; but, in attempting to escape to him, they were 
 killed. Maifei, in his Indian History, refers to the aid which the native 
 princes derived from these and other Christian renegadoes. 
 
 Note D. 
 
 FERNAM MENDEZ PINTO. 
 
 The ill fortune of which Pinto complained as having pursued him through 
 life, did not spare him even after he was laid in the grave, the narrative 
 of his adventures which he left behind him having been assailed by the wits 
 and critics with hardly less ferocity than poor Pinto himself was while alive 
 by the corsairs, infidels and barbarians, with whom he came in contact. 
 He is indeed chiefly known to English readers by an ill-natured fling of Con 
 greve, who, in his" Love for Love," makes one of his characters address 
 another in those oft-quoted words : — " Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a 
 type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude ! " It is said also that Cervantes, 
 three or four years before whose death Pinto's book was published, speaks of 
 him somewhere as the " prince of liar's." I have not been able to find the 
 passage ; but likely enough Cervantes might have been a little vexed to fina 
 his Persiles and Sigismunda, a romance, under the guise of a book of trav- 
 els, first published about the time with Pinto's book, so much outdone by 
 what claimed to be a true narrative of real adventures. 
 
 As Pinto, however, in spite of all his ill luck, found, in writing his me 
 moirs, some topics of consolation, so also his character as an author and a 
 
564 APPENDIX. 
 
 narrator has by no means been left entirely in the lurch. Though little read 
 now, he has enjoyed, in his day, a popularity such as few authors attain to. 
 To the first edition of his " Peregrinations," in the original Portuguese, suc- 
 ceeded others in 1678, 1711 and 1725; and second, third and fourth editions are 
 compliments which Portugal very rarely pays to her authors. A Spanish 
 translation appeared at Madrid in 1620, in which, however, great and very 
 unwarrantable liberties were taken by the translator. A French translation 
 was published at Paris in 1628, and an English translation in 1663. To the 
 Spanish and French translation defences of Pinto's veracity are prefixed, and 
 both passed through several editions. Purchas, who gives a synopsis of that 
 part of Pinto's book relating to China and Japan, strongly defends his credibil- 
 ity,observing that he little spares his own company and nation, but often and 
 eagerly lays open their vices. " I find in him," says Purchas, " little boast- 
 ing, except of other nations, none at all of himself, but as if he intended to 
 express God's glory, and man's merit of nothing but misery. And, how- 
 ever it seems incredible to remember such infinite particulars as this book is 
 full of, yet an easy memory holdeth strong impressions of good and bad, 
 especially new-whetted, filed, furbushed, with so many companions in mis- 
 ery, their best music in their chains and wanderings being the mutual 
 recounting of things seen, done and suffered. More marvel is it, if a liar, 
 that he should not forget himself and contradict his own relations. 
 
 " I would not have an author rejected for fit speeches framed by the writer, 
 in which many historians have taken liberty ; nor if sometimes he doth 
 mendacia dicere [say false things], so as that he doth not meniiri [lie] ; as 
 I will not sware but of himself he might mistake, and by others be misled. 
 The Chinese might, in relating their rarities to him, enlarge and de magnis 
 major a loqui [exaggerate things really great], so as he still might be relig- 
 ious in a just and true delivery of what himself hath seen, and belei not his 
 own eyes. * * * All China authors, how diversified in their lines, yet 
 all concur in a certain centre of Admiranda Sinarum [admirable things of 
 the Chinese] , * which if others have not so largely related as this, they may 
 thank God they paid not so dear a price to see them ; and, for me, I will 
 rather believe, where reason evicts not, ejectione firma [with a firm ejection] , 
 than seek to see at the author's rate ; and if he hath robbed the altars of 
 truth, as he did those of the Calumplay idols, yet, in Pekin equity, we will 
 not cut off his thumbs (according to Nanquin rigor), upon bare surmise, 
 without any evidence against him. ' ' 
 
 The countries in which Pinto's adventures chiefly lay, still remain, for the 
 most part, very little known ; but the more they have been explored, the 
 more has the general correctness of Pinto's statements been admitted. The 
 editor of the great French collection, Annates des Voyages, who gives a full 
 abstract of Pinto, remarks that, having had occasion, in preparing the vol- 
 
 * The title of a work ascribed to Valignani, the same visitor of the Jesuit missions in' the 
 East, repeatedly mentioned in p. 84, et seq., of the text, and whom Purchas elsewhere call* 
 jhe " great Jesuit." 
 
ENGLISH AND DUTCH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST. 566 
 
 ume of that work on China, to consult all accessible works about that coun- 
 try, he had been more and more confirmed in his opinion of the reality of 
 Pinto's adventures and the general correctness of his memory. Remusat, the 
 eminent Chinese scholar, cites Pinto as good authority for facts, and it was, 
 I believe, by his procurement, or that of the Societe Asiatique, that the 
 French translation of his travels was reprinted at Paris in 1830. 
 
 Note E. 
 
 EARLIEST ENGLISH AND DUTCH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST. GOA. 
 
 Prior to the first Dutch and English India voyages, both Englishmen and 
 Dutchmen had reached India, some by way of Lisbon and the Cape of Good 
 Hope, others over land. Pinto speaks of Christians of various nations as 
 among the adventurers with whom he acted. Hackluyt gives (vol. n.) a letter 
 written by Thomas Stevens, an English Jesuit, dated in 1579, at Goa, which 
 he had reached by way of Lisbon and the Cape of Good Hope. This curious 
 letter was addressed by Stevens, who was attached to that very seminary of St. 
 Paul (or the Holy Faith), of which we have had occasion to make mention, to 
 his father in England. Hackluyt also gives in the same volume some very 
 interesting memorials of the adventures of John Newbury, who, attended by 
 Ralph Fitch, Story, a painter, Leeds, a jeweller, and others, was sent over 
 land in 1583, simultaneously with the first English attempts at exploration and 
 settlement in North America, by some London merchants of the Turkey Com- 
 pany, as bearer of letters from Queen Elizabeth to Zelabdim Echabar, king of 
 Cambia [ Ackbar, the Great Mogul] and to the king of China — both which let- 
 ters, proposing trade and commerce, Hackluyt gives at length. Newbury pro- 
 ceeded by way of Ormus, which he had visited before, and where he found mer- 
 chants of almost all nations, not Portuguese only, but Frenchmen, Flemings,. 
 Germans, Hungarians, Greeks, Armenians, Turks, Arabs, Jews, Persians, 
 Muscovites, and especially Italians, who seem by this time to have recovered a 
 great share of the trade to the East. By one of these Italians Newbury and 
 his company were accused as spies of Don Antonio (the claimant as against 
 Philip II., of the Portuguese throne, and at that time a refugee in England). 
 The fact also that Drake, in his recent voyage round the world, had, while 
 at the Moluccas, fired two shot at a Poi'tuguese galleon, was alleged against 
 them. They were sent prisoners to the viceroy at Goa ; but, by the good 
 offices of the English Jesuit, Stevens, abovementioned, and of John Huigeu 
 Van Linschoten, a Dutchman in the service of the archbishop, they were 
 released on giving sureties not to depart without leave of the viceroy, which 
 sureties they procured by placing goods in the hands of certain parties who 
 became bound for them. 
 
 Story, the painter, had indeed previously procured his discharge by join- 
 ing the Jesuits of St. Paul, where he was admitted as a probationer, and was 
 
 48 
 
566 . APPENDIX. 
 
 employed in painting the church. The others, finding that the viceroy would 
 not discharge their sureties, left secretly, or, as Fitch expresses it, " ran from 
 thence," April, 1585, and, passing to Golconda, travelled north to Agra, 
 then the capital of the Great Mogul. Here Leeds, the jeweller, entered 
 into the Mogul's service, who gave him " a house, five slaves, and every day 
 six S.S. [qu. sequins ?] in money." Newbury went from Agra to Lahore, 
 expecting to go thence to Persia, and, by way of Aleppo and Constantinople, to 
 reach England ; and he sent Fitch meanwhile to Bengal and Pegu, promising 
 to meet him in Bengal in two years in a ship from England. Fitch passed on 
 to Benares, and thence to Bengal, and, Nov. 28, 1586, sailed for Pegu, whence 
 the next year he proceeded to Malacca. Returning again, in 1588, to Pegu, 
 he went thence to Bengal in the following November ; whence, in February, 
 1589, he took shipping for Cochin, touching at Ceylon on the way, a "brave 
 island," where he spent five days. At Cochin he stayed eight months before 
 he could get a passage to Goa. From Goa he proceeded to Ormus, whence, 
 by way of Basora^Mosul and Aleppo, he reached England April 29, 1591. 
 
 Linschoten, mentioned above, who had arrived at Goa in 1583, from Lis- 
 bon, as one of the archbishop's suite, returned to Holland in 1589, where he 
 published his travels in 1595, — the first Dutch account of the East. From 
 him we learn that Story, the painter, after the departure of his companions, 
 grew sick of the cloister of St. Paul, and, as he had not yet taken the vows, 
 left and set up as a painter in Goa, where he had abundant employment, and, 
 " in the end, married a mestizo's daughter of the town, so that he made his 
 account to stay there while he lived," — the first permanent English resi- 
 dent in Hindostan. 
 
 There is in the Asiatic Journal, for Dec. 1838, a very striking description 
 of the present ruinous state of the once splendid and magnificent city of Goa. 
 It has been abandoned for Pongi, now known as New Goa, six miles nearer 
 the sea, and ihe present seat of the shrunken Portuguese viceroy alty. The 
 only inhabitants of Old Goa are a few hundred monks, nuns and their 
 attendants, attached to the splendid churches and monasteries still standing, 
 among which towers conspicuous the church of the Jesuits, in a beautiful 
 chapel attached to which is the monument of St. Francis Xavier. His 
 body, removed thither from the college of St. Paul, in which it was first 
 placed, reposes upon a sarcophagus or bier of Italian marble, faced with 
 bronzes, representing his missionary labors, and enclosed in a shrine of 
 brass and silver, It is alleged still to be in as good preservation as ever, 
 and is occasionaUy exhibited in public. The last of these exhibitions was in 
 1783. 
 
 Note F. 
 
 JAPANESE DARIN J AND ADVENTURE EXTERIOR TO THE LIMITS OP JAPAN. 
 
 The same Davis, who had Joeen Houtman's pilot in the first Dutch voyage 
 .0 the East Indies, sailed from England in 1604, as master of the Tiger, a 
 
JAPANESE DARING AND ADVENTURE. 56? 
 
 ship two hundred and forty tons. While on her course from Bantam to 
 Batavia, the Tiger encountered a little junk of seventy tons, with ninety 
 Japanese on board, " most of them in too gallant a habit for sailors." They 
 had left home, as it turned out, in a larger vessel, which had been " pirating 
 along the coast of China and Cambodia," — much the same business, by the 
 way, in which the Tiger was herself engaged, — but, having lost their vessel 
 by shipwreck, they had seized upon this little junk, laden with rice, and were 
 trying to reach Japan in it. In hopes to get some information out of them, 
 they were entertained for two days with "gifts and feasting ;" but, at the 
 same time, their junk was searched for treasure which might be concealed 
 under the rice. While part of the Tiger's men were employed in this search, 
 the Japanese made a desperate effort to get possession of that ship. Davis 
 himself was killed in the first surprise, but the Japanese were finally forced 
 into the cabin, where, by breaking down a bulkhead, some of the ship's guns, 
 loaded with bullets and case shot, were brought to bear upon them. They 
 disdained to ask quarter, and all perished from effects of the shot except one, 
 who jumped into the sea. The narrative of this affair, given by Purchas 
 (Pilg., Part I., p. 137), and apparently written by an officer of the Tiger, 
 winds up as follows : " The Japanese are not suffered to land in any port of 
 India with weapons, being accounted a people so desperate and daring that 
 they are feared in all places where they come." 
 
 In conformity to this character of the Japanese is the account given by 
 Floris, cape merchant of the Globe, an English ship, which touched at Siam 
 in 1612, while performing the voyage mentioned p. 161 of the text. A 
 short time previously, two hundred and eighty Japanese, the slave-soldiers 
 of a principal Siamese noble, who had been put to death by the royal au- 
 thority, had revenged their master by seizing on the king of Siam, whom 
 they compelled to subscribe to such terms as they dictated, " after which, 
 they had departed with great treasure, the Siamese not being able to right 
 themselves." 
 
 The good service rendered to the Portuguese by Japanese mercenaries at 
 the siege of Molucca, in 1606, is mentioned in the text, p. 142. It appears, 
 from a curious tract concerning the Philippines, preserved by Thevenot, that 
 when De Silva, governor of those islands, undertook, in 1608, to drive the 
 Dutch from the Moluccas, he was obliged to send to Japan for saltpetre, 
 metal, and even for founders to cast cannon. A body of Japanese formed, 
 in 1619, a part of the Dutch garrison in their fort at Jacatara (named abort 
 that time Batavia), while besieged by the natives on the island,^ind block- 
 aded at the same time by an English squadron, as mentioned p. 183 of 
 the text. Of the Japanese settled on the island of Amboyna, and involved 
 with the English in the massacre there, mention is made on p. 186. Haga- 
 naar, who was at Cambodia in 1637, found among the inhabitants of that 
 city seventy or eighty families of Japanese, whom he describes as not daring 
 to return to their own country, with which, however, they carried on trade, 
 by mean* of Chinese ships. They were in great favor with the king of Cam- 
 
5G8 APPENDIX. 
 
 bodia, to whom they had rendered valiant assistance in suppressing a dan- 
 gerous rebellion, and were greatly feared by the other inhabitants of the 
 city, whether Chinese or Malays. To this day one of the channels of the 
 great river of Cambodia is known as Japanese river — a name given, indeed, 
 on some maps, to the main river itself, and probably taking its origin from 
 this Japanese colony. 
 
 The conquest of the Lew Chew Islands, by the king of Satsuma, took place 
 about 1-610 ; and, much about the same time, some Japanese made an estab- 
 lishment on the island of Formosa, for the purpose of trading with the 
 Chinese ; but in this they were soon superseded by the Dutch. The narra- 
 tive of Nuyts' affair, as given in the text (p. 199), is derived from a detailed 
 account appended in Voyages au JVbrd, torn, iv., to Caron's Memoir, ad- 
 dressed to Colbert, on opening an intercourse with Japan ; but, from a paper 
 embodied in the Voyage of Kechteren (Voyages des Indes, torn, v.), and 
 written, apparently, in 1632, by a person on the spot, it would appear that 
 the conduct of Nuyts, instead of being prompted by personal antipathy, was 
 merely an attempt to exclude the Japanese from the trade with the Chinese, 
 and to engross it for the Dutch East India Company ; "a desire good in 
 itself," so this writer observes, " but which should have been pursued with 
 greater precaution and prudence." 
 
 In the Chinese writings, the Japanese figure as daring pirates ; but, as the 
 appellation bestowed on them is equally applied to other eastern and south- 
 eastern islanders, it is not so easy to say to whose credit or discredit the 
 exploits referred to by these Chinese writers actually belong. 
 
 Note G-. 
 
 PRODUCTS OF JAPAN. PROBABLE EFFECT OF OPENING JAPAN TO FOREIGN 
 
 TRADE. BY S. W. WILLIAMS. 
 
 There is much exaggeration, doubtless, in the minds of many persons in 
 the United States, respecting the population, wealth, resources and civiliza- 
 tion, of the Japanese, in all of which points they have been generally rated 
 much higher than the Chinese, in proportion to the extent of their country. 
 Further examination will show that the trade with them is to grow slowly, 
 and only after they and their foreign customers have learned each other's 
 wants, and«lhe rates at which they can be supplied. They have yet to ac- 
 quire a taste for foreign commodities, and ascertain how they are to pay for 
 them ; and their rulers may interpose restrictions, until they see what course 
 the trade will take, and how the experiment of opening tl e country to the 
 Americans is likely to affect their own political position. Foreigners, will 
 need some data, too, before they can see their way clear to "embark much in 
 such a traffic. The intercourse, it is to be hoped, will be conducted amicably, 
 *»ven if the first adventures should not prove to be very profitable. 
 
PRODUCTS OF JAPAN. 569 
 
 In articles of food and raw produce, the Japanese have hitherto raised only 
 such as they needed, as wheat, rice, barley, cotton, silk, iron, copper, and 
 such like, most of which can be more profitably taken there than carried 
 away. The copper of Japan, long famous for its purity, is used to a small 
 extent by the Japanese in preserving their junks, but much more in orna- 
 menting them ; even those whose bottoms are not coppered are curiously 
 overlaid and adorned on the bows and gunwales with many plates and pieces 
 of this metal. On shore, we saw very few copper utensils, either in the 
 kitchen or work-shop, and the metal does not seem to be extensively used in 
 any way, compared with what one might have anticipated. 
 
 Charcoal and fossil coal are both procurable ; the former to a great 
 amount, as it forms the fuel of all classes, and is of an excellent quality. 
 The fossil coal is obtained from the islands of Kiusiu and Sikokf, in the 
 principalities of Tchikugen and Awa, and the specimens obtained appear to 
 be surface coal, not of a very good quality of bituminous, but which might 
 turn out better on digging deeper. The demand for it to supply steamers 
 running between China and California may stimulate more energy in bring- 
 ing it to market, but, until we know more, there is not much on which to 
 ground large hopes in respect to this article. 
 
 Camphor is produced in Japan, and both the unrectified gum and timber 
 can doubtless be obtained. The pine wood of the country is also of the finest 
 quality, and might be carried away for cabinet work, as well as curly maple 
 and other woods which further investigation may discover. At Simoda, 
 good building-stones are quarried, in blocks of three or four cubic feet, and 
 in small slabs, both of which might be taken to San Francisco, for the foun- 
 dations of houses, when the trade there in other articles is sufficient to load 
 a ship. 
 
 A few specimens of tea were obtained, all of which were sun-dried, and 
 only one of them of a pleasant flavor. In order to make the tea grateful to 
 western palates, a different process of manipulation must be introduced. 
 If the cultivators were taught the various processes of fining tea-leaves, it is 
 probable that their tea would soon be in demand, as the leaf is as fine as that 
 grown in China. The plant is common in hedges and yards, in the villages 
 on the shores of the Bay of Yedo, and its cultivation could be indefinitely 
 extended. The Japanese often use sugar with their tea, and drink it moder- 
 ately strong. 
 
 The specimens of lackered ware, both inlaid shell, mosaic, gilded and 
 plain, which the Japanese produce, are superior to anything produced in 
 the East, as those who have visited the Handel-Maabschappy's (or Dutch 
 East India Company's) warehouse, at Batavia, know. Those articles are 
 chiefly made for a foreign market, and more could be supplied, as demand 
 arose, and manufacturers directed their attention to them, while their beauty 
 and finish would always secure a moderate sale. 
 
 Raw cotton is often woven into cloth by the family which raised it, and 
 intends to wear it. Silks are worn by the gentry, but the common people 
 
 48* 
 
570 APPENDIX. 
 
 usually dress in cotton. The specimens of silk fabrics furnished by the 
 Japanese show that they can manufacture almost every variety of these 
 goods. Crapes, pongees, challies, camlets, and gauze, are all made, espe- 
 cially the first, which is the favorite article of dress among the gentry, as it 
 is in China. Cheap combinations of cotton and silk are woven, and form 
 substitutes for pure silk among the poor. The dyes in all kinds of silk, and 
 the stamps on cottons, further prove that the arts of ornamenting the pro- 
 ducts of the loom have been carried to a high degree of excellence ; some of 
 the tints are superior to those in China, and the variety of patterns stamped 
 on cotton is great and novel. The figures on crapes are frequently large 
 and grotesque, those on cotton small and of a single color ; but, doubtless, 
 any patterns can be produced after time has been given. The trade in man- 
 ufactured silks may, by-and-by, form an important branch of the traffic. 
 So far as can be ascertained, the native manufacture now consumes most of 
 the raw silk, so that there is little probability of Japan furnishing any of 
 that at 'present ; it is highly probable, even, that it is imported from China. 
 
 Besides the articles already enumerated, a few minor articles may also be 
 sought after. Paper, of a coarse quality, is used in enormous quantities for 
 nose-wipers, and for wrapping up articles ; and, though all the specimens 
 seen are in sheets less than three feet square, it can probably be made in 
 longer sheets. It is all manufactured from the bark of the paper-nmlberry 
 (Broussonetia), which grows wild about Simoda ; and the fine sorts would 
 serve for engravers' uses and printing. Some of the specimens seen are ex- 
 tremely fine and smooth, not so white as cotton or linen, but silky and soft. 
 The soy made by the Japanese is of an excellent flavor, and this and their 
 sweet saki, or rice whiskey, might find a few customers. Kittisols, or paper 
 umbrellas, and rain-cloaks made of oiled paper, afterwards varnished, are 
 neatly-made articles, which last longer than one would suppose so frail a 
 material would endure. There is not the same unpleasant smell about them 
 that renders the Chinese kittisols so disagreeable. Fine porcelain is made 
 by this people, of a superior quality, and could, probably, be manufactured 
 according to any pattern. The small saki and tea-cups constitute the great- 
 est portion of the pieces which we saw in the shops ; and though china-ware 
 is common, and of a good quality, it is not used to nearly the extent it is in 
 China. Some of the specimens -of Japanese porcelain exceed anything to be 
 found elsewhere, for thinness and clearness of ware, and the demand for 
 them is likely to increase. Coarse pottery and earthen ware are cheap, and 
 many of the pieces are worked into grotesque and elegant shapes. Whether 
 it could *be furnished of the proper sorts, and in sufficient quantity, for ex- 
 portation, is, perhaps, doubtful. Besides these articles, nothing that seems 
 likely to be in demand was brought to our notice, but further investigations 
 may show that raw lacker, India ink, tobacco, fish-oil, rape-seed, and other 
 miscellaneous products, will be worth seeking for exportation. 
 
 Amid the vast variety of foreign articles likely to be in demand among the 
 Japanese, those which are cheap and durable for wear, or in constant use ae 
 
PRODUCTS of ja: AN. 571 
 
 food, rank the first. Cheap woollens, blankets, glass-ware, fancy colored 
 and drilled cottons, cutlery, watches, soaps, and, perhaps, lead, tin, iron, 
 ginseng, and perfumery, will commend themselves to the people. Rice, 
 wheat and barley in the grain, sugar, and, perhaps, flour, too, are such 
 products as can be readily disposed of in a country whose population seems 
 to live very near its production. At present there is no knowledge among 
 the mass of people as to what they can get from abroad, and no desire for it, 
 since all their wants have been hitherto supplied among themselves, and 
 they have been content with what they had. 
 
 The produce of the country is not much beyond the wants of its inhabit- 
 ants, and there is, therefore, a difficulty in paying for cloths and other 
 things which the common people might be glad to take. The proportion of 
 rich men is, probably, small, and wealth generally belongs to the class of 
 noblemen, or monopolists, by whom the industry of the masses is either com- 
 pelled or farmed for their benefit. These classes might be willing to take 
 fine things, articles of ornament or excellence, such as glass ware for the 
 toilet or table, fine cutlery, broadcloth, or watches, and pay for them in 
 crapes, silks, lackered ware, or gems ; but such a barter would extend very 
 slowly, and never amount to much. It is, however, likely to be the com- 
 mencement of the trade at Simoda, as the rich and noble can sooner gratify 
 their inclinations than the poor, and each party will desire to see the most 
 beautiful specimens of skill and art the other can furnish, and at first they 
 are most likely to be remunerative. 
 
 The most likely way to commence the trade with Japan is, it appears to 
 me, for ships going from China to California to stop at Simoda for water and 
 provisions, and pay for them in cotton, woollen, or other goods, of which a 
 larger assortment than could be disposed of might be had in readiness to 
 show. A few calls of this sort would make the people around the town 
 aware, practically, that the produce of their farms and gardens was likely 
 to meet with a steady sale, for returns which were valuable and appreciated 
 by their neighbors. The demands of a few ships for provisions would begin 
 to turn the attention of the people to supplying them, while an exchange 
 of each other's commodities would, probably, ere long, attract capital- 
 ists from Yedo, Okosaka, and other large towns, to enter more largely into 
 the opening commerce, and take orders to be fulfilled by a certain date. 
 Merchants will find little encouragement to reside at Simoda for many sea- 
 sons yet. 
 
 In conducting a barter trade with the Japanese, the foreigner must under- 
 stand their determination in respect to the currency, and charge three times 
 the cash price for his goods, in order to make them equal with the market 
 prices of provisions and merchandise. However, further investigations are 
 still wanted to ascertain how much bread, cotton, and labor, can be obtained 
 for an ichibu, before the comparison of the currency of Japan with that of 
 China, England, or America, is perfectly satisfactory. 
 
 Tt is idle to speculate on the effects of the new influences likely soon tc 
 
572 APPENDIX. 
 
 operate upon this inquisitive, touchy, and high-spirited people, through the 
 openings now made in their seclusive policy ; but it is earnestly to be hoped 
 that the personal bearing of Americans resorting to Simoda and Hakodade 
 will not be such that the Japanese will conclude that, while there are some 
 things to be afraid of in their new customers, they have more to despise and 
 reject, from what they see of their conduct. 
 
 Note H. 
 
 ACCOUNT OP JAPAN, CHIEFLY EXTRACTED FROM JAPANESE WORKS.* 
 
 The archipelago, of which the Japanese empire is composed, is inhabited 
 by a race that, at first sight, greatly resemble the Chinese in form and 
 exterior. In carefully examining their characteristic features, however, and 
 comparing them with those of the Chinese, it is easy to perceive the discrim- 
 ination between them ; I have myself made the experiment at the Russian 
 and Chinese frontier, where I met with individuals of both nations at the 
 same time. The eye of the Japanese, although placed almost as obliquely as 
 that of the Chinese, is, however, wider near the nose, and the centre of the 
 eyelid appears drawn up when opened. The hair of the Japanese is not uni- 
 formly black, but of a deep brown hue. In children below the age of 
 twelve it may be found of all shades, even to flaxen. There are also indi- 
 viduals to be met with who have hair completely black, and almost crisped, 
 with eyes very oblique, and a skin extremely dark. At a distance, the com- 
 plexion of the lower orders appears yellow, like the color of cheese ; that of 
 the inhabitants of towns is diversified according to their mode of life, whilst 
 in the palaces of the great may be often seen complexions as fair and cheeks 
 as ruddy as those of European females. The vagabonds on the highways, on 
 the other hand, have a skin of a color between copper and a brown earthy 
 hue. This is the prevailing complexion of the Japanese peasantry, of those 
 parts of the body particularly which are much exposed to the heat of the 
 sun. 
 
 The distinct origin of the Chinese and the Japanese is completely estab- 
 lished by the language of the latter, which is wholly different, in respect to 
 radicals, from that of all people in the vicinity of Japan. Although it has 
 adopted a considerable number of Chinese words, those words do not form a 
 radically integral part of the language ; they have been introduced by Chi- 
 nese colonies, and principally by the Chinese literature, which has formed 
 the basis of that of Japan. The Japanese radicals have as little resemblance to 
 those of the Corean tongue ; they are equally alien to the dialects of the Aynos 
 or Kuriles, who inhabit Jeso. Lastly, the Japanese language has no affinity 
 
 * From an article furnished by M. Klaproth to the Asiatic Join tal, new series, vol. vr 
 
klaproth's account of japan. 573 
 
 to the dialects of the Manchoos and Tungooses, who inhabit the continent c/ 
 Asia opposite to Japan. 
 
 In manufacturing industry the Japanese rival the Chinese and the Hindus. 
 They have excellent workmen in copper, iron and steel ; their sabres are not 
 inferior to those of Damascus and Korasan. Many arts, such as the manu- 
 facture of silk and cotton fabrics, of porcelain, of paper from the bark of the 
 mulberry-tree and from the filaments of various plants, of lackered ware, 
 glassware and other articles, have reached a high degree of perfection amongst 
 them. The Japanese have practised the art of printing ever since the begin- 
 ning of the thirteenth century, in tl% same manner as the Chinese. The 
 most celebrated presses are at Miako and Jedo. These two cities, with Osaka, 
 Nagasaki, Yosida, and Kasi-no-mats, are the principal marts of industry in 
 the empire. 
 
 In the same proportion that the external commerce of Japan is circum- 
 scribed, its internal trade is active and flourishing. No imposts check its 
 operations, and communication is facilitated by the excellent condition of the 
 roads. Although the ports of Japan are sealed against foreigners, they are 
 crowded with vessels, both great and small. Shops and markets overflow 
 with every species of commodities, and large fairs attract a prodigious number 
 of people to the trading towns, which are scattered throughout the empire. 
 
 The three principal islands which constitute the Japanese empire are, for 
 the most part, studded with lofty volcanic mountains, particularly that of 
 Nipon, which is traversed in its whole length by a chain almost of uniform 
 elevation, and in many places crowned with peaks covered with perpetual 
 snow. This chain divides the streams which flow to the south and east, and 
 which fall into the Pacific Ocean, from those which pursue a course more or 
 less northerly to the sea of Japan. The highest mountain of the empire 
 forms, however, no part of this chain ; it is that of Foosi-no-yama, an enor- 
 mous pyramid crowned with snows, situated in the province of Suruga, on 
 the frontier of that of Kai'. 
 
 An empire composed of islands cannot, of course, have very considerable 
 rivers. It is only in the largest, the island of Nipon, that the most consider- 
 able streams are found, chiefly in the western portion, which is larger than 
 the eastern. The Jodogawa is the efflux of Lake Biwano-mitsu-oomi, 
 called on our maps the Lake of Oltz, situated in the province of Oomi, sev- 
 enty-two and a half English miles long, and twenty-two and a quar- 
 ter in its greatest width, and much the largest in Japan. The Jodogawa 
 passes before the cities of Jodo and Osaka, and falls into the gulf of that 
 name. The Kiso-gawa rises in the province of Sinano, flows to the south- 
 west, enters Mino, where it is reinforced by several large rivers, forms the 
 boundary between this province and that of Owari, and, under the name of 
 Sayagawa, falls into the gulf of Izeh. The Tenriogawa, or river of the heav- 
 enly dragon, flows out of Lake Suwa, in the province of Sinano, enters Tooto- 
 mi, and there disembogues itself by three mouths into the sea ; it is very 
 wide, and its current is extremely rapid. The Kunanafi originates at Mount 
 
574 APPENDIX. 
 
 Yatuga-oka, in Kal. At the boundary between this province and that of 
 Suruga,- it separates into two branches : the western, called the Ooygawa, 
 divides Suruga from Tootomi, and falls into the sea a short distance from 
 Iro ; the eastern branch, named Foosi-no-gawa, runs at the base of Mount 
 Foosi-no-yama, and enters the bay of Taga. The sources of the Aragawa are 
 at the lofty mountain of Fosio-daken, situated between the provinces of Koo- 
 tsukeh and Musasi. It flows through the latter, and soon separates into two- 
 branches ; the western, receiving the name of Todagawa, falls into the gulf 
 of Jedo, to the eastward of the city of that name, which is watered by 
 branches and canals from the Todagawa. Upon one of these canals is the 
 celebrated Mpon-bas, or bridge of Japan, from whence distances are com 
 puted throughout the empire. The other branch of the Aragawa falls into 
 the great lake Tukgawa, formed in Kootsukeh province by the three great 
 rivers, Takasina, Atsuma and Kawagawa. It divides Musasi from Koo 
 tsukeh and Simosa, and falls by one branch into the gulf of Jedo, and by 
 the other into the great lake Kasmiga-oora, whose waters are discharged, by 
 the large issue called Saragawa, into the Eastern Ocean. This lake, situated 
 in the province of Fitats, is fed by a number of considerable streams flowing 
 from the mountains of Moots, Simotsukeh and Fitats. The Ookumigawa and 
 the Figanigawa are two large mountain streams ; they discharge themselves 
 into the Eastern Ocean. The source of the Kasabagawa is in the province of Si- 
 nano. Its course is northerly, entering Yetsingo, where it takes the name of 
 Finegawa, and falling into the sea of Japan, near the city of Ituwogawa. In 
 Sinano it detaches a branch on its right, the Saigawa, which flows to the north- 
 east, and unites itself to the Sinanogawa. This large stream originates in the 
 Akiyama mountain, in the province of Sinano ; it enters the Yetsingo, where 
 it discharges itself by three arms into the estuary of Niegata, which commu- 
 nicates with the sea of Japan. The Ikogawa rises on Mount Sanotooki, on 
 the frontier of Sinano and Moots ; it traverses a part of the latter, where it 
 receives the Datami on the left, and on the right the waters of the salt lake 
 Inaba. It enters Yetsingo* where it takes the name of Tsugawa, and falls by 
 one of its branches into the estuary of Niegata, and by the easternmost into 
 that of Fukusimagata. The largest river in the province of Dewa is the Mo- 
 gami, called at its embouchure the Sakadagawa. It is formed by several 
 large streams, which flow from the snowy mountains of Moots, and it falls 
 into the sea of Japan. 
 
 The empire is distributed into eight grand divisions or countries, denomi- 
 nated Do, or "ways," namely, Gokynay, Tokaydo, Tosando, Foo-koo-ro-koodo, 
 San-in-do, San-yo-do, Nan-kay-do, and Say-kay-do. These are subdivided 
 into sixty-eight kokfs, or provinces, which again consist of six hundred and 
 twenty-two koris, or districts. 
 
 I. Gokynay consists of five provinces, which compose the peculiar state or 
 demesne of the emperor ; they are as follows : 
 
 1. Yamasiro (eight districts) ; principal cities, Kio, or Miako, the resi- 
 dence of the Dairi, Nizio and Yodo ; productions, damasks, satins, taffetas, 
 
klaproth's account of japan. 575 
 
 and other silk fabrics of every kind, lackered articles, caps, kesas, or scarfs 
 for the Buddhist priests, screens, fans, pins, bow-strings, white paint, tea- 
 boxes, images of Buddhist divinities, porcelain and earthen ware, melons, 
 tender sprouts of the bamboo for eating, dry ginger, stones for grinding ink, 
 tea, grindstones,. dolls, fish. 2. Yamato (fifteen districts) ; principal cities, 
 Xori-yama, Toka-tori, Kara ; productions, saki, or Japanese wine, excellent 
 ink, parasols, pottery-vessels, cotton, deer, lacker, paper (plain and var- 
 nished), flour of the katsoora root, tobacco, melons, medical herbs, edible 
 roots. 3. Kawatsi (fifteen districts) ; city Sayansa ; productions, fruit, bar- 
 relled figs, sugar of-rice, perfumes, cucumbers, tree-cotton, diamonds, matri- 
 caria, bridles, bells for hawks used for hunting, raisins, black yams, coals, 
 edible roots of the lotus. 4. Idzumi (three districts) ; city, Kisi-no-wata ; 
 productions, gold-flow ered gauzes, taffetas, brass guns, white paint, shoes, 
 vinegar, umbrellas, knives, melons, gold-fish, rock spari, soles, paper, salt, 
 summer hats, water-jars, tobacco, combs, sieves. 5. Sets (thirteen dis 
 tricts) ; cities, Osaka, one of the chief commercial emporia in the empire, 
 Taka-tsuki, Ayaka-saki ; productions, raw cotton (both tree and herbaceous), 
 cotton fabrics, salt-water fish, salted fish, grain, medicinal plants, wood for 
 building, oil for burning, saki, soy, vinegar, umbrellas for the rain and the 
 sun, tiles, melons, turnips, a sort of mustard of which the tender sprouts 
 are eaten (kaburana),. iron kettles, gingerbread. . 
 
 II. Tokaydo, or eastern sea-way, consists of fifteen provinces ; namely : 
 1. Iga (four districts) ; capital, Wooye-no. • 2. Izeh (fifteen districts) • 
 cities, Koowana, Kameyama, Tsu, Mats-saka, Kambeh, Kwe, Nagasima, 
 Yoda, the Daysingu temples ; productions, raw cotton (tree and herbaceous), 
 taffetas, sea-crabs (highly-prized), the best pearls in Japan, a great quantity 
 of fish and shell-fish, mosses, large radishes, daucus Indica, acorns (totsi 
 nomi, barrelled figs, excellent tea, mercury (crude and sublimed), white 
 paint, whalebone, almanacs, sugar of rice, matches, flutes, straw shoes. 3. 
 Sima (two districts) ; capital, Toba ; productions, pearls, nearly as fine as 
 those of Izeh. 4, Owari (eight districts); cities, Nakoya, Inogama ; pro- 
 ductions, pearls, loadstones, edible roots, gourds. 5. Mikawa (eight dis 
 tricts); cities, Yosida, Nisi wo, Kariya, Tawara, Oka-saki, Koromo ; pro 
 ductions, talc, anchors, arrow-heads, stones for playing drafts and chess, 
 paper, fish, shell-fish, amongst which is the cancer Bernhardus. 6. Tutu- 
 mi (fourteen districts) ; cities, Kakegawa, Yakosuka, Famamats ; produc 
 tions, potatoes, oranges of different sorts, eels and other fish, sugar of rice, 
 peas, light summer cloths, made of the katsoora plant, other cloths, 
 edible shoots of the bamboo, birds of prey for the chase, arrow-heads. 
 7. Suruga (seven districts) ; cities, Foo-tsiu, Tanaka ; productions, pa- 
 per, bamboo utensils, melons, tea, sweet oranges, rock spari and other 
 sea-fish, moss from Mount Foosi-no-yama. 8. Idsu (three districts); 
 capital, Simoda ; productions, saki or Japanese wine (from Yekawa), 
 paper, astrological almanacs from the great temple of the Sintos at 
 Misima, ginger. 9. K*y (four districts); capital, Footsiu ; productions, 
 
576 APPENDIX. 
 
 taffetas, paper, stamped gold of the country, varnish, wax, chestnuts 
 peaches, raisins, barrelled figs, trained horses. 10. Sagani (eight districts) ; 
 cities, Odawara, Tamanawa ; productions, safflower, shrimps (the coast 
 abounds with fish). 11. Moosasi (twenty-one districts); cities, Jedo, the 
 second capital of the empire, and the residence of the Seogun or military em- 
 peror of Japan ; Kawagobe, Iwatski, Osi ; productions, melons, fish, oys- 
 ters, divers shell-fish, moss, cotton, human hair, lime. 12. Awa (four dis- 
 tricts) ; cities, Yakata-yama, Tosio, Fosio ; productions, cotton, moss, fish. 
 13. Kadzuza (eleven districts) ; cities, Odaghi, Sanuki, Kooruri ; produc- 
 tions, safflower, moss, oysters (in the bay of Ootaki-ura very fine rock spari 
 are taken). 14. Simoosa (twelve districts) ; cities, Seki-yado, Sakra, 
 Kooga, Yu'ghi ; productions, moss, chestnuts, gauzes and other silk fabxics. 
 15. Fitats (eleven districts) ; cities, Mits, Samodats, Kodats, Kasama ; pro- 
 ductions, large paper, carp, and many other fish. 
 
 III. Tosando, or way of the eastern mountains, consists of eight prov 
 inces : 
 
 1. Oomi (thirteen districts) ; cities, Fikoneh or Sawa-yama, Zezeh ; pr« 
 ductions, bones of snakes, dead grasshoppers, yellow dye-root (kariasu) . 
 lime, rush mats, spiders' webs, hempen cloths, a variety offish, paper made 
 of grass, earthen dishes, timber for building, grindstones, stones for grinding 
 ink, porcelain of Sikara-ki, arrow-heads, tobacco-pipes, parasols, models 
 (sisineh), rock crystal, saddles, whips, crupers, lamp-wicks, kettles, meas- 
 ures, ink, moxa (a substance to burn, made from the tops and leaves of a 
 species of artemesia), asbestos, cotton thread, peas and beans, paper, pins 
 and needles, calculating boards (abacus). 2. Mino (eighteen districts); 
 cities, Oogani,- Kanora, or Kanara ; productions, silk manufactures, various 
 sorts of paper, melons, knives and daggers, carp, birds of prey for hunting. 
 3. Fida (four districts) ; capital, Taka-yama ; productions, cotton, saltpetre, 
 silver, copper, fish, silk goods. 3. Sinano (ten districts) ; cities Uyeda, 
 Matsumoto, Iyi-yama, Takato, Omoro, Iyida, Takasima ; productions, ninsi 
 or ginseng (a small species, and of inferior quality), buckwheat, hempen 
 garments, salt, tobacco. 5. Kootskeh (fourteen districts) ; cities, Tatsfayan, 
 Mayi-bas, Numsda, Yasinaka, Takeseki ; productions, silk manufactures of 
 various qualities, lacker, celebrated. carp from the river Negawa. 6. Simo- 
 tskeh (nine districts) ; cities, Ootsu-miya (containing the temple of the Sin- 
 tos, in high repute), Kurafa, Mifu, Odawara (also Mount Nikwo-san, with a 
 celebrated Buddhic temple); productions, paper (strong and of a large size), 
 lacker, fine taffeta, straw hats, fans, umbrellas, copper from Mount Rowo- 
 yama. 7. Moots (fifty-four districts), the largest province in Japan ; cities, 
 Senday, the capital of an almost independent pi'ince; Sira-issi, Waku-mats, 
 Niphon-mats, Morioka, or Great Nambu, Yatsdo, Tana-koora, Taira, Sira- 
 kawa, JNakamura, Fook-sima, Minuwaru, Firo-saki (in the district of Tsugar), 
 Ina-basi, and, lastly, Matsmai, at .the southern extremity of the island of 
 Jeso ; productions, provisions, silk fabrics, summer garments made of papers- 
 ashes and potash, gold-dust, hawks for hunting, grain, large sea-shells 
 
klaproth's account of japan. 577 
 
 galted fish, bear-skins, trained horses, horse-tails, lacker, wax, wooden 
 bowls, rock-crystal, amber, red earth ; the best horses in Japan are from the 
 district of Nanbu, where are extensive pastures ; the productions of Jeso, in 
 particular, are as follows : konbu, or sea-cabbage, birds of prey for hawk- 
 ing, whales and other sea-fish, skins of otters, beavers, seals, and stags, cas- 
 toreum, gold, silver, adamantine spar. 8. Dewa (twelve districts) ; cities, 
 Yone-sawa, Yama-gata, Onewe-no-yama, Sinsio, Sionay, Akita ; produc* 
 tions, sea-cabbage, safflower, a very large kind of hemp, wax, lacker, oiled 
 paper, madder, tin, lead, silver, sulphur, deer-skins, horses. 
 
 IV. Fookoorokudo, or way of the northern districts, comprehends seven 
 provinces : 
 
 1. Wakasa (three districts) ; capital, Kobama ; productions, white rice 
 pionies, pulp of lotus-flowers, perfume-bags, cloths, masses, paper, saki, pen 
 cils, stones for grinding ink, black stones for draft or chess boards, lime, 
 many kinds of fish. 2. Yetsisen (twelve districts); towns, Fookie, Foo- 
 cheu, Maruoka, Ono, Sabafe, Katsu-yama ; productions, lead, different sorts 
 of paper, cloths, silk fabrics, cotton goods, hats woven from the filaments 
 of herbs, grindstones, oil extracted from the seeds of the dryandra cor data, 
 much fish. 3. Yetsiu (four districts); capital, Toyama ; productions, salt- 
 petre, yellow lotus, lead, cotton cloths, taffetas, fish. 4. Yetsingo (seven 
 districts) ; cities, Takata, Naga-oka, Simbota, Mura-kami, Itsumo-saki, Mora- 
 mats ; productions, lead, lacker, wax, white mustard, various cotton fabrics, 
 white hares, sturgeons and other fish, deal and larch wood. 5. Kaga (four 
 districts); cities, Kanazawa (with the celebrated Buddhic temple Daisiu-si), 
 Komats ; productions, paper, skins for drums, small thread, wine of mother- 
 wort, yellow lotus, sulphur, silk, satins. 6. Noto (four districts) ; this prov- 
 ince has no cities ; the most considerable towns are Soos-no-misaki, Kawa- 
 siri, Nanao ; productions, sea-fish, divers kinds of mosses, colored stones 
 washed up by the sea. 7. Sado (three districts); the capital of this isle is 
 Koki ; productions, gold, silver, yellow lotus, deal and larch-wood. 
 
 V. Sanindo, or way of the northern sides of the mountains, contains eight 
 provinces : 
 
 1. Tango (five districts) ; cities, Miyazu, Tanabeh ; productions, hemp, 
 baskets, silk, taffetas, fish and shell-fish, umbrellas, iron, timber for build- 
 ing. 2. Tonba (six districts); cities, Kame-yama, Sasa-yama, Fooktsi- 
 yama ;. productions, China-root, wax, quinces, chestnuts, tobacco, cloths, 
 tea, topazes, sheaths for knives and sabres. 3. Tasima (six districts) ; cities, 
 Idzusi or Daisi, Toyo-oka ; productions, small ginseng, pionies, yellow lotus, 
 medicinal and edible herbs, cotton, hawks for hunting, pepper, silver, grind- 
 stones. 4. Inaba (seven districts); capital, -Totstori ; productions, vege- 
 table wax, paper, melons, dried fish, ginger. 5. Foki (six districts) ; capi- 
 tal, Yonego ; productions, iron, steel, bear's-gall, a medicine greatly in 
 repute among the Japanese, pans to fry fish. 6. Idzumo (ten districts); 
 capital, Matsugeh ; productions, iron, steel, sabres, fish, shell-fish, melons, 
 cloths. 7. Iwami (six districts) ; cities, Tsoowano, Famada ; productions, 
 
 49 
 
578 APPENDIX. 
 
 silver, tin, draftmen, honey. 8. Oki (four districts) ; this province consists 
 of two large isles, of the same name, the one called the hither, the other the 
 hinder ; it has no cities, only small towns and villages ; productions, cloth 
 and sea-fish. 
 
 VI. Sanyodo, or way of the southern side of the mountains, has eigh ; 
 provinces : 
 
 1. Farima (twelve districts) ; cities, Fimedzi, Akazi, Ako, Tatsfu ; pro- 
 ductions, fish, shell-fish, salt, saddles, leather, looking-glasses, kettles, steel, 
 cast-iron, a kind of very viscous rice, which is used to distil excellent saki. 
 2. Mimasaka (seven districts) ; cities, Tsuyama, Katsu-yama ; produc- 
 tions, saltpetre, stones for grinding ink. 3. Bizen (eight districts) ; capital, 
 Oka-yama ; productions, large cuttle-fishes, sea-fish, mosses, porcelain, edi- 
 ble marine herbs. 4t» Bitsiu (nine districts) ; capital, Matsu-yama ; produc- 
 tions, paper of various kinds and colors, pears, lacker, iron. 5. Bingo 
 (fourteen districts) ; capital, Fuku-yama ; productions, silk fabrics, summer- 
 hats, rock-spari and other sea-fish. 6. Aki (eight districts) ; capital, Firo- 
 sima ; productions, paper, basket's, saltpetre, rock-crystal, dried figs, mal- 
 lows, fish. 7. Suwo (six districts) ; cities, Tok-yama, Fook-yama ; produc- 
 tions, paper, red color, cloths, edible bamboo. 8. Nagata (six districts) ; 
 cities, Faki, Tsio-fu, Fu-naka ; productions, porcelain, green color, fish, 
 Btones to grind ink, lime, shell-fish, models. 
 
 VII. Nankaydo, or southern way of the sea, contains six provinces : 
 
 1. Kiy (seven districts) ; cities, Waka-yama, Tona-be, Sinmiya (with a 
 celebrated temple, dedicated to the god of physic, surrounded with several 
 others) ; productions, medicinal plants, oranges, various kinds of wine, soles, 
 mallows, shell-fish, whales, carp, oysters, pulse, and edible plants, melons, 
 honey, vegetable glue, mosses, chestnuts, timber, ink, wooden bowls, paper 
 to make parasols, bows, jewelry articles, draftmen, grindstones. 2. Awasi 
 (two districts) ; capital of this isle, Sumoto or Smoto ; fish, stones of different 
 colors, tree cotton. 3. Awa (nine districts) ; capital, Toksima ; produc- 
 tions, oysters, precious stones of a blue color (lapis lazuli?), cloths, fire- 
 wood, flints. 4. Sanuki (eleven districts) ; cities, Take-mats, Maru- 
 kameh ; productions, fish, oysters and other shell-fish, sea-crabs. 5. lyo 
 (fourteen districts) ; cities, Matsu-yama, Uwa-yama, Imobari, Sayzio, Ko- 
 mats, Daisu, Dago ; productions, pulse, fish, edible marine herbs, paper, 
 hawks, mats, cloths. 6. Tosa (seven districts) ; capital, Kotsi ; produc- 
 tions, trained horses, monkeys, salted fish, shell-fish, cloths, paper, ink, 
 baskets, honey, hemp, timber. — Note. The provinces of Awa, Sanuki, lyo, 
 and Tosa, belong to the island called Sikokf ; that is, " of the four 
 provinces." 
 
 VIII. Saykaydo, or western way of the sea, comprehends nine provinces 
 of the large island of Kiusiu, formerly also called Tsin-sae-fu, or " the west- 
 ern military government " : 
 
 1. Tsikoozen (fifteen districts) ; cities, Fookoo-oka, Akitsuki ; produc- 
 tions, silk manufactures like the Chinese, saki, fish, wild geese, cast-iron 
 
OMITTED DOCUMENTS. 579 
 
 settles. 2. Tsi-kungo (ten districts) ; cities, Kurome, Yana-gawa ; produc- 
 tions, carp, safflower, radishes. 3. Buzen (eight districts) ; cities, Kokura, 
 Nakatsu ; productions, cotton fabrics, rock-crystal, sulphur. 4. Bungo (eight 
 districts) ; cities, Osuki, Takeda, Saeki, Foonae or Fnae, Finode ; produo* 
 tions, saltpetre, sulphur, rock-crystal, tin, lead, large bamboos, chestnuts^ 
 hawks and dogs for hunting, fish, frying-pans, bricks. 5. Fizen (eleven 
 districts) ; cities, Saga, Karatsu, Omura, Simabara, Osima, Firando, Naga- 
 saki ; productions, whales and other sea-fish, shell-fish, echini, edible roots, 
 water-melons, raisins, earthen ware, silk stuffs, knives, brass guns, porcelain, 
 mats, cotton cloths, sugar. 6. Figo (fourteen districts) ; cities, Kuma-moto, 
 Yatsu-siro, Oodo, Amakusa ; productions, salted fish, sweet oranges, tree 
 cotton, mosses, grindstones, flints, earthen ware, tobacco pipes, leather 
 trunks. 7. Fiuga (five districts) ; cities, Jyifi, Takanabeh, Nobi-oka, Sado- i 
 wara ; productions, lacker, pears, deal for building. 8. Osumi (eight dis- 
 tricts) ; capital, Kokobu ; productions, brass cannon. 9. Satsuma (four- 
 teen districts) ; capital, Kagosima ; productions, camphor, a species of 
 ginseng, safflower, melons, edible roots, tobacco, vegetable wax, cinnamon, 
 trained horses, deer-skins, cloths, combs, saki. 
 
 The island of Iki is divided into two districts ; its capital is Katu-moto ; its 
 productions are fish, cloths and gauzes. 
 
 The island of Tsu-sima, between Corea and Japan, is also divided into two 
 districts ; the capital is Futsiu ; its productions are ginseng, lead, grind- 
 stones and frying-pans. 
 
 The empire is governed by eight administrations or boards ; namely, Tsiu 
 jb-no-sib, the general central board ; Sik-boo-no-sib, the board of legisla- 
 tion and of public instruction ; Dzi-boo-no-sib, the general board for the 
 interior ; Min-boo-no-sib , the board for the affairs of the people, or general 
 police ; Fio-boo-no-sib, the general board of war ; Ghio-boo-no-sib, the 
 board of criminal affairs ; Ob-koora-sib, the treasury board ;. Kbo-nai-no 
 sib, the ministry of the imperial dwelling. 
 
 Note I. 
 
 OMITTED DOCUMENTS. 
 
 I. Letter of the Emperor Ge-Jas (Ogosho-Sama) to the king of England — 
 (James I.).* 
 
 "Your majesty's kind letter, sent me by your servant, Captain John 
 Saris (who is the first that I have known to arrive in any part of my 
 dominions), I heartily embrace, being not a little glad to understand of your 
 great wisdom and power, as having three plentiful and mighty kingdoms 
 under your powerful command. I acknowledge your majesty's great bounty 
 
 * See ante, page 171. 
 
(580 APPENDIX. 
 
 in sending me so undeserved a present of many rare things, such as my land 
 affordeth not, neither have I ever before seen ; which I receive not as 
 from a stranger, but as from your majesty, whom I esteem as myself. Desir- 
 ing the continuance of friendship with your highness, and that it may stand 
 with your good liking to send your subjects to any part or port of my domin- 
 ions, where they shall be most heartily welcome, applauding much their 
 worthiness, in the admirable knowledge of navigation, having with much 
 facility discovered a country so remote, being no whit amazed with the dis 
 tance of so mighty a gulf, nor greatness of such infinite clouds and storms, 
 from prosecuting honorable enterprises of discoveries and merchandising, 
 wherein they shall find me to further them according to their desires. I re- 
 turn unto your majesty a small token of my love (by your said subject), 
 desiring you to accept thereof as from one that much rejoiceth in your friend" 
 ship. And whereas your majesty's subjects have desired certain privileges 
 for trade and settling of a factory in my dominions, I have not only granted 
 what they demanded, but have confirmed the same unto them under my 
 broad seal, for better establishing thereof. From my castle in Suruga, this 
 fourth day of the ninth month, in the eighteenth year of our Dairi, according 
 to our computation. Resting your majesty's friend, the highest commander 
 in the kingdom of Japan. 
 
 " [Signed,] Minna. Montono. Yer. Ye. Yeas." 
 
 II. An ordinance of the emperor of Japan sent to all the governors of the 
 maritime districts to prevent the landing of Portuguese : * 
 
 '* The express and reiterated commandments against the promulgation of 
 the religion and doctrine of the Christians have been duly published and 
 everywhere proclaimed ; but it being found that these edicts were not 
 efficacious, they [that is, the Christians] were forbidden to approach the 
 coasts of Japan with their galliots and other sea vessels ; and some of them, 
 in contempt of this prohibition, having come to Nagasaki, orders were given, 
 in punishment of this offence, to put them to death. It was commanded, last 
 year, by a special edict, that in case any sea vessel were seen on the coasts 
 of Japan or entered any port, it might be permitted to anchor, with a 
 strong guard on board, till what they proposed was sent to the emperor. 
 This commandment is now revoked ; and it is ordered instead that these ves- 
 sels [that is, Portuguese and Spanish vessels], without hearing a word 
 which those on board have to say, shall be destroyed and burnt, whatever 
 pretence they may set up, and all their crews to the last man be put to death. 
 
 *' It is also commanded to erect watch-towers on the mountains and all 
 along the coast, and to keep constant watch to discover Portuguese vessels, 
 so that news of their arrival may at once be spread everywhere ; and if such 
 a vesa 5l shall first be discovered from a more distant point, it shall be im- 
 puted as a crime to those in charge of the nearer watching places, and th« 
 
 * See ante., page 192. 
 
OMITTED DOCUMENTS. 681 
 
 governors thus guilty of negligence shall be deprived of their offices. A* 
 soon as a Portuguese vessel shall be discovered, news shalL.be sent express to 
 all the neighborhood, to the governors of Nagasaki and Osaka, an 1 * to the 
 lord ofAruna [Omura?]. 
 
 " It is expressly forbidden to attack or molest any Portuguese vessel at 
 sea, but only in some road, port or haven of the empire, as to which you will 
 conform to the orders that may be sent you from the governors of Nagasaki 
 or the lord of Aruna, except where necessity obliges instant action, in which 
 case you will act as already commanded. 
 
 "As to vessels of other nations, you will, according to the tenor of 
 former ordinances, visit and examine them ; and, after placing a strong 
 guard on board, without allowing a single person to land, send them in all 
 safety to Nagasaki." 
 
 III. Letter from Louis XIV. to the emperor of Japan.* 
 
 " To the sovereign and highest emperor and regent of the great empire of 
 Japan, over subjects very submissive and obedient, the king of France wishes 
 a long and happy life and a most prosperous reign : 
 
 "Many wars, carried on by my ancestors, the kings of France, and many 
 victories gained by them, as well over their neighbors as over distant king- 
 doms, having been followed by profound peace, the merchants of my king- 
 dom, who trade throughout Europe, have taken occasion very humbly to beg 
 me to open for them the way into other parts of the world, to sail and to 
 trade thither like the other European nations ; and I have the rather inclined 
 to accede to their request, from its being seconded by the wishes of the 
 princes and nobles among my subjects, and by my own curiosity to be exactly 
 informed of the manners and customs of the great kingdoms exterior to 
 Europe, of which we have hitherto known nothing but from the narratives 
 of our neighbors who have visited the East. I have therefore, to satisfy as well 
 my own inclination as the prayers of my subjects, determined to send depu- 
 ties into all the kingdoms of the East ; and as my envoy to your high and 
 sovereign majesty, I have selected Francis Caron, who understands Japan- 
 ese, and who has many times had the honor of p'aying his respects to your 
 majesty, and of audience from you. For that express purpose I have caused 
 him to come into my kingdom, knowing him very well to be of good extrac- 
 tion, though by misfortunes of war stripped of his property; but reestablished 
 by me in his former condition, and even elevated in honor and dignity, to 
 
 * See, ante, page 204. Colbert's East India Company anil scheme of opening the com- 
 merce of China and Japan, was simultaneous with his West India Company, and hia 
 attempts to strengthen and build up the establishments of the French in the Carribee Islanda 
 and in Canada. La Salle, who immortalized himself as the discoverer of the Upper Mis- 
 sissippi, and as first having traced that river to its mouth in the gulf of Mexico, came origin- 
 ally tc Canada with a view to the discovery of an overlaud western passage to China and 
 Japan. See Hildreth's History of the United States, vol. n., p. 113. The Japan enterprise, 
 however, proved a failure, and the letter given above never actually reached Japan. 
 
 49* 
 
582 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 make him more worthy to approach your high and sovereign majesty with 
 all due respect. An additional motive for selecting him was the fear lest 
 another person, from ignorance of the wise ordinances and customs estab- 
 lished by your majesty, might do something in contravention of them, and 
 so might fall under your majesty's displeasure ; whence I have judged the 
 said Francis Caron the most capable to present my letter and my requests, 
 with such solemnities as might secure for them the best reception on the part 
 of your majesty, and to make known my good affection and my frank desire 
 to grant to your sovereign majesty whatever you may ask of me, in return 
 for the grant of what I ask : which is, that the merchants of my kingdoms, 
 who have united themselves into a company, may have free commerce 
 throughout your majesty's empire, without trouble or hindrance. I send 
 you the present of trifling value here noted. * * * * I hope it may be 
 agreeable to your majesty, and that some things useful to your majesty may 
 be found in my country, of which I voluntarily leave open and free all the 
 ports. 
 
 " At Paris, the twenty-fourth year of my reign. 
 
 "The King Louis." 
 
 Note. — What is said above of Caron's good extraction, of his having lost his fortune by 
 the chances of war, and of his ree'stablishment in his former position by the favor of the 
 king, was, it is probable, merely intended to reconcile the Japanese to receiving as an envoy 
 from the king of France a man whom they had known only in the — according to their 
 ideas — low character of a Dutch merchant. 
 
 In the instructions drawn up for the bearer of this letter, the following curious directions 
 were given as to the answer to be made to the inquiries of the Japanese on the topic of relig- 
 ion : " As to the article of religion you will say, that the religion of the French is of two 
 kinds — one the same with that of the Spaniards, the other the same with that of the Dutch; * 
 and that his majesty, knowing that the religion of the Spaniards is disliked in Japan, has 
 given orders that those of his subjects who go thither shall be of the Dutch religion ; that 
 this distinction will be carefully attended to ; and that no Frenchman will ever be found 
 wishing to contravene the imperial orders.f Should they advance as an objection, that the 
 king of France depends upon the Pope, like the king of Spain, you will answer, that ho does 
 not depend upon him ; that the king of France acknowledges no superior, and that the 
 nature ofTiis dependence upon the Pope may easily be seen in what has happened within 
 two years, in consequence of an outrage at Rome upon the person of his majesty's ambassa- 
 dor. The Pope not making a sufficiently speedy reparation, his majesty had sent an army 
 into Italy, to the great terror of all the Italian princes, and of the Pope himself, who 
 Bent a legate to him charged with the most humble and pressing supplications, whereby his 
 majesty was induced to recall his troops, which already had encamped in the Pope's territo- 
 ries. So that the king is not only .sovereign and absolute in his own domain, but also gives 
 the law to many other potentates ; being a young prince, twenty-five years of age, valiant, 
 wise, and more powerful than any of his ancestors ; and, withal, so curious that, besides a 
 particular knowledge of all Europe, he eagerly seeks to know the constitution of the other 
 countries of the world." 
 
 * This was before the revocation of the edict of Nantz. 
 
 f This reads very much like the third clause in the American letter 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acupuncture, 410, 453. 
 
 Acting and Actors. 164, 273—276, 422. 
 
 Adams, Wm., his voyage to Japan and ad- 
 ventures there, 133, 134, 154—159, 163, 
 165, 173 ; his Japanese family and estate, 
 174 ; his will, 184. 
 
 Adofski, 280. * 
 
 Agriculture, Japanese, 68, 404, 421. 
 
 Ainslie, Dr., 457, 458. 
 
 Almeida, Louis, 79, 81, 122, 130, n. 
 
 Alvarez, Father, his Japanese Grammar, 
 125, n., 547. 
 
 Amboina, 52, 186. 
 
 Amakusa, 103, 125, 126. 
 
 Ambergris, 250. 
 
 Americans in Japan, 446, 453, 456, 491, 496 — 
 499, 502—504, 507 ; embassy, 507 ; letter 
 to the emperor, 509, 518 ; treaty, 523 ; addi- 
 tional regulations, 530—532, 534. 
 
 American anchorage, 519. 
 
 Amida, 65, n., 351, n. 
 
 Angiro (Paul, of the Holy Faith), 39, 47—51, 
 272 ; death of, 72. 
 
 Angeles, Father de, 170, n., 203. 
 
 Animals, domestic, 67, 338, 405, 490 ; wild, 
 67, 490. 
 
 Aquiviva, general of the Jesuits, 87. 
 
 Aratame, 351. • 
 
 Arima, 79, 83, 86, 101, 102, 125, 126, 191. 
 
 Armorial bearings, 95, n., 282, 287, 295, 304, 
 315, 447, 514, 517. 
 
 Army, 198. 
 
 Arms, 413, n., 515. 
 
 Array, place of inspection, 354. 
 
 Asiatic Journal, 152, 491, 556. 
 
 Astronomers, 409, 452, 467, 468, 488. 
 
 Barretto, Nugnes de, 76, 77. 
 
 Beds and Bedding, 307, 401, 463. 
 
 Bell, great, 380, 382. 
 
 Bettelheim, Dr., 500 
 
 Biddle, Commodore, 496. 
 
 Bikuni (begging nuns), 320. 
 
 Bishops of Japan, 125, 128, 130, 175, 187. 
 
 Blind, societies of, 324. 
 
 Books, Japanese, 419. 
 
 Bonin Islands, 512. 
 
 Botany, Japanese Jove of, 283 -, books on, 410, 
 419 j of Japan, 395, 408, 421, 423, 490. 
 
 Brcskins, the voyage of, 201. 
 
 Bridges, 292, 340, 345, 360. 
 
 Brixiano, Organtino, 119. 
 
 Broughton, 445. 
 
 Buddha, 64, n. 
 
 Buddhism and Buddhists, 47, 59, 63, 269, 351. 
 
 Bungo, 30, 32, 73, 79, 116, 126. 
 
 Bulls, papal, relating to Japan, 117, 129, 140, 
 175. 
 
 Burger, Dr., 489. 
 
 Burrows, visit to Japan, 534. 
 
 Cabral, Father, 82, 84, 85. 
 
 Calendar, Japanese, 35, 271. 
 
 Camphor trees, 337, 438, 559. 
 
 Cammelia, 395. 
 
 Candles, 331, 332. 
 
 Cangosima, 50, 75, 154, 492. 
 
 Cards, 469. 
 
 Carts, 406. 
 
 Carpets, 296, 400, 539. 
 
 Caron, 195—197. 200, 204, 205, n., 209, 261, 
 
 265, 267, 278, 282, 325, 337, 351, 403. 
 Castracoom, voyage of, 200, 203. 
 Castles, 297, 298, 338, 343, 349, 354. 
 Casuar, 342. 
 
 Catharine II., of Russia, 445. 
 Catholicism in Japan, 50, 75, 79, 85, 103, 
 
 128 ; edicts against, 98, 172, 175, 176 : ex- 
 tinction of, 187, 190, 191, 200, 205 ; causes 
 
 of the persecution of, 98, 111, 123, 172, 176, 
 
 178, 179. 
 Catholics in Japan, number of, 102, 151, 200. 
 Cevicos, Jean, 189, n. 
 Charlevoix, 27, 94, 170, 189, 222. 
 Children, management of, 402, 403. 
 China ware and pottery, 337. 
 Chinese Repository, 491, 493. 
 Chinese trade and intercourse with Japan, 21, 
 
 210, 214, 248, 384, 507 ; with Europe, 121, 
 
 184, 178, 207 ; opium war, 494. 
 Civan, king of Bungo, 73, 79, 83, 85, 86, 89, 
 
 112. 
 Clocks, Japanese, 396, 488. 
 Climate of Japan, 409, 420, 423, 467. 
 Cloth fortifications, 463, 493. 
 Coal mines, 338, 488, 533, 559. 
 Cocks, Richard, 165, 173, 174, 177, 180—182, 
 
 186. 
 Coin, 55, 209, 282, 383, 531, 532, n. 
 Colds and catarrhs, 402. 
 Colic, 410. 
 
 Concubines, 199, 433. 
 Collado, Father, 188, 190 ; his Japanese gram 
 
 mar, 392, 393, 547. 
 Copper, Japanese, 209, 214, 251, 384, 885, 
 
 421. 
 Corea, 104, 112, 113, 115, 126, 129. 
 Cosme de Torres, 50, 51, 76, 78, 186. 
 Cosmogony, Japanese, 62. 
 Courtesans, 150, 199, 223, 236, 259, 325, 487 
 Coxinga, 230. 
 Crucifixion, 124. 
 
 Curtis (Botanical Magazine), 395, 396, n. 
 Daibods, temple of, 380. 
 Daikoku, god of riches, 272. 
 Dairi, or Mikado, 55, 56, 81, 150, 193, 199 
 
 349, 426. 
 Dale, Sir T., 183. 
 Dancers, 422. 
 
 Davis, Houtman's pilot, 556. 
 Deaima, 191, 201, 222—225, 231—23? 237 
 
 389, 391. 
 
584 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Doeff, Hendrick, 447, 449, 451—457, 484. 
 
 Dogs, 405, 490. 
 
 Dominicans in Japan, 113, 117, 120, 129. 
 
 Draughts, game of, 469. 
 
 Dragons, 303. 
 
 Dress, 409, 417, 521, 528, 530. 
 
 Dutch East India Company, 132, 133, 162, 
 
 184, 216, 217, 3S7, 417, 4S4. 
 Dutch intercourse and trade with Japan, 142, 
 
 153, 184, 193, 213, 222—251, 384, 389, 446, 
 
 453, 459, 484, 506. 
 Dutch Director, 246, 247, 249, 277, 326, 367, 
 
 370, 372, 377, 379, 311, 484, 488, 501. 
 Dutch-Japanese children, 392, 459. 
 Dutch language in Japan, 430, 486, 548. 
 Earthquakes, 120, 297, 432, 542. 
 Elephant, 458, 468. 
 English trade and intercourse with Japan, 
 
 161, 163, 169, 177, 184, 186, 196, 205, 446 
 
 —448, 454, 485. 
 Eachiman, Fuchiman, Fatzman, or Hachiman 
 
 (the Japanese Mars), 127, 302. 
 Fans, 284. 
 
 Facone, district of, 356, 407. 
 Faxiba (afterwards Taiko-Sama), 95—97, 104, 
 
 105, 108, 110, 112. See Taiko-Sama. 
 Feije, or Feke, family of, 58, 551. 
 Feast of Lanterns, 442. 
 Festivals, 62, 173, 397, 442, 470. 
 Ferreyra, Christopher, 190, 202. 
 Ferries, 292. 
 
 Fide Jori, 127, 129, 154, 176. 
 Figen, or Fisen, province of, 53, 264, 337, 338, 
 
 455. 
 Figure-treading, 228, 267, 397, 503. 
 Firando, 73, 142, 153, 163, 173, 177, 180, 182. 
 
 186, 190, 194, 195, 201 ; prince of, 79, 103' 
 
 126, 139, 144, 152, 153, 163—165, 177. 
 Fires, 68, 354, 355, 360, 361, 409, 431, 451, 541, 
 
 551. 
 Firemen, 359. 
 
 Fisscher, J. F. Van Overmeer, 459, 487. 
 Fitch, Ralph, 206, 555, 556. 
 Fire-places, 307, 527, 540. 
 Flower-gardens, 305, 306, 310. 
 Flowers, 30S, 310, 407. 
 Forest trees, 408, 410. 
 Formosa, 190, 195, 210, 230. 
 Foxes, 67, 334, 335. 
 
 Foyne-Sama, 144, 152, 153, 163—165, 177. 
 Franciscan missions, 118, 120, 123, 124, 129, 
 
 French intercourse with Japan, 204, 499, 571. 
 Froez, Louis, 80, 81, 126, 130, n., 185, n., 195, 
 
 199, 331. • 
 
 Fruit trees, 407. 
 Fruits, 407, 421. 
 Funeral ceremonies, 439 — 442. 
 Furniture, 296. 
 
 Fusi mountain, 345, 407, 492, 568. 
 Galvano, Antonio, 21, 41, 52 ; his account of 
 
 the discovery of Japan, 23. 
 Gago, Balthazar, 75, 79. 
 Games, 332. 
 Gardens, 311. 
 
 Gnecchi, Father, 82, 83, 97, 116, 123, 126, 129. 
 3i-jas (Ogosho-Sama, and Gongen-Sama), 
 
 founder of the reigning dynasty, 127 — 129, 
 
 137—139, 143, 148, 156, 157, 168, 177. 
 Ginseng, 390. 
 Globius, 452, 468, 486. 
 
 Glynn, Captain, 500 
 
 Goa, 20, 42, 46—48, 76, 87, 105, 556. 
 
 Gold, 209, 385, 531. 
 
 Golownin, 28, 36, 12-8, 421, 427, 451, 458, 461 
 
 —483. 
 Gordon, Captain, 485. 
 Gowns, 417, 422, 
 Grave-yards, 395, 537. 
 Guns, their introduction into Japan, 30, 413 ; 
 
 515. 
 Guysbert, Robert, 187, 188, 267, 268. 
 Gutslaff, 491. 
 
 Hackluyt, 22, 99, 113, 119, 121, 136, 207. 
 Haganaar, 190, 195, 196, 261. 
 Hagendorp, 448. 
 
 Hair, manner of wearina:, 412, 521, 522. 
 Hakodade, 445, 460, 463. 
 Hatch, Arthur, 183. 
 Hay, collection of Japanese letters, 94, 119, 
 
 130, 159. 
 Hawkins, Sir R., attempted voyage to Japan, 
 
 132. 
 Head-dresses and coverings, 273, 284, 413, 
 
 515. 
 Histoire General des Voyages, 154, 554. 
 Horses, 167, 405. 
 Horseback riding, 280, 285. 
 Houses, 258, 295, 296, 299, 305, 341, 349, 360, 
 
 398, 538—542. 
 Houtman, Cornelius, 132, 133. 
 Idsu (province), 359, 504, 564. 
 Imhoff, 384. 
 Inns, 146, 167, 305. 
 Intermarriages, 174, 197, 201, 230. 
 Interpreters of Desima, 231, 279, 280, 309, 
 
 328. 
 Irkutsk, professorship of Japanese at, 446. 
 Jamabo, mountain priests, 66, 321. 
 Jancigny, his work on Japan, 491, 506. 
 Japan, discovered by Europeans, 22, 34, 35 5 
 
 preceding history, 58, 426 5 exclusive pol- 
 icy of, 225, 385, 386, 445, 480, 495, 497, 
 
 501 ; characteristics of the inhabitants, 70, 
 
 220, 228, 283, 333, 423, 562. 
 Jebisu, or Yebis-san-ro (Japanese Neptune), 
 
 272. 
 Jedo, 99, 129, 145, 169, 177, 204, 358—379, 
 
 417, 451, 486, 488, 525 ; bay of, 357, 492, 
 
 495, 496, 504, 520, 534. 
 Jeso, 100, 101, 203, 444, 461, 467. 
 Jesuits in Japan, 84, 102, 103, 117, 118, 121, 
 
 125, 140, 176, 178, 179, 191. 
 Joritomo, 58, 324, n., 325. 
 Joscimon, king of Bungo, 82, 85, 98, 102, 103, 
 
 115, 116. 
 Journal Asiatique, 141, 385. 
 Journal of Commerce, (New York), 520, 527. 
 Jujumi (figure-treading), 228, 267, 347, 503. 
 Justice, administration of, 200, 268, 300. 
 Kachi, see Tachitay-Kachi. 
 Kambang, Dutch sale by, 245—249. 
 Kami, 60, 62. 
 Kampfer, Engelbert, 18, 32, 188, 208, n., 210 
 
 213, n., 216—382, 395, 400, 405, 407, 41* 
 
 424, 464. 
 Kamissimo, 211, 419. 
 j KaDagawa, 358, 521, Vll 
 i Kango, 286. 
 Kappa, 284. 
 I Kandarin, 29. 
 i Katti, or Catty, 29. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 585 
 
 Kas, 29. 
 
 Kitoo, 55. 
 
 Klaproth, 62, 271, 295, 352, 356, 382, 385, 420, 
 
 426. 451, 562. 
 Kokf, 54. 
 Kokonots, 267. 
 Konashir, 444, 460. . 
 Kobang, 55, 209, 383, 532. 
 Krusenstern, 449. 
 Kubo, 54, 56, 420, 427, 431. 
 Ku?e, 57, 427. 
 Kuli, 229, 235, 389. 
 
 Kurile Islands, 100, 203, 444, 445, 483. 
 Kwambak, Kambakundono, 96, 220, 427. 
 La Lande's astronomy in Japan, 452. 
 Lacker and lackered ware, 68, 309, 521, 537, 
 
 559. 
 Lancaster, voyages to the East Indies, 132, 
 
 139. 
 Lamps, 332. 
 Lattices, 369. 
 
 Laxman in Japan, 445, 468. 
 Leonsiama, 471, 473. 
 Lew Chew, 27, 30, 34, 100, 101, 141, 202, 325, 
 
 495 522. 
 Iiampo, 21, 22, 25, 34, 35. 
 Linshoten, 132, 555. 
 London Missionary. Society, 494, n. 
 Lopo de Vega, 173. 
 Loyala, Ignatius, 42, 43, 77. 
 Macao, 21, 77, 86, 122, 124, 134, 186, 187, 
 
 192, 206, 207, 491. 
 McDonald, prisoner in Japan, 503, 504. 
 M'Kay, prisoner in Japan, 502, 503. 
 Maffei, 22, 130. 
 
 Magellan, Straights of, 131, 132, 134. 
 Mahay, Jacques, 132. 
 Maize, 538. 
 Malela, 17. 
 
 Malacca, 21, 24, 87, 142. 
 Manilla, 109, 117, 120, 121, 126, 140,154, 159, 
 
 184, 189, 207. 
 Mansie (cakes), 375. 
 
 Manufactures, 68, 337, 349, 350, 537, 559. 
 Maps, Japanese, 221, 419, 489. 
 Mariner, voyage of, 504- 
 Marco Polo, 14—17. 
 Marmori, 431. 
 Marsden, 16, 17. 
 Mas, 29. 
 
 Mats, 400, 416, 539. 
 Marriages, 199, 432—439, 469, 470. 
 Martyrs, 123, 178—181, 186, 190, 196. 
 Matsmai, 101, 445, 465, 466. 
 Matsuri, 270, 422. 
 Matheson, Captain, 514. 
 Maylan, G. F., 487. 
 Meals, 51, 332, 357, 375, 378, 401, 462, 466, 
 
 470, 522. 
 Merchants, 32, 54, 272, 406, 452, 483. 
 Mercator, voyage of the, 495. 
 Medicines, 353, 410, 539, 540. 
 Mermaids, 342. 
 Mexico, intercourse with Japan, 123, 155, 
 
 157—159, 189. 
 Mia (Kami temples), 61, 260, 301, 379—382, 
 
 528. 
 Miako, 53, 50, 72, 81, 98, 109, 123, 126, 129, 
 
 151, 154, 171, 349, 379, 404, 431. 
 Mikado. See Daiii. 
 
 Mirrors, 61, 402. 
 
 Miseratsie (house ornaments), 307. 
 
 Moluccas, 21, 23, 41, 52, 142, 153, 155, 162, 
 
 172, 183. 
 Mongul invasion of Japan, 14. 
 Monsoons, 241. 
 Montanus (Memorable Embassies), 204, 209, 
 
 367. 
 Morrison, voyage of the, 491 — 493. 
 Mourning, 440—443. 
 Moxa, 411. 
 
 Music and Musical Instruments, 165, 274, 536 
 Mythology, Japanese, 62, 65, 271, 272. 
 Nagasaki, 82, 86, 101, 102, 114, 123, 125, 129 
 
 178, 180, 181, 218, 240, 247, 256, 262—264 
 
 277, 327, 454, 499—504, 522. 
 Nambu, 202. 
 Namada, 261. 
 Naugato, 72, 74, 77, 97. 
 Nengo, 35. 
 
 New Year's Day, 397, 470. 
 Nipon, 13, 53, 101, 299, 327. 
 Niponbas, 360. 
 
 Nobunanga, 81—83, 86, 95, 385 
 Norimon, described, 286. 
 Nuyts, Peter, 194, 195, 558. 
 Oath, Japanese form of, 227. 
 Obani (a gold coin), 55. 
 Offari (indulgence box), 318. 
 Ogosho Sama. See Gi-jas. 
 Oil, 332, 345, 395, 460. 
 Oitz (lake), 352. 
 
 Omura, 80, 82, 86, 101, 102, 455. 
 Ottona, 265, 266 ; of Desima, 223, 224, 226, 232- 
 
 233, 238, 239, 293, 249. 
 Oxu, or Muts, 158. 
 Ozaka, 53, 97, 98, 123, 130, 153, 154, 166, 177, 
 
 289,339. 
 Painting, cosmetic, 337, 338, 392, 487. 
 Paper, manufacture of, 400. 
 Paper hangings, 258. 
 Parker, Dr., 491, 493. 
 Paul, of the Holy Faith. See Angiro. 
 Pearls, 15, 536. 
 
 Pellew, Captain, 454, 455. # 
 
 Peroufte, La, 444. 
 Phaeton, visit to Japan, 454, 455. 
 Philip II., of Spain, 87, 91, 94. 
 Philippines, 52, 108, 113, 114, 118, 120, 121, n , 
 
 126, 131, 141, 144, 172, 180, 207. 
 Physicians, 407, 410, 412, 452, 488. 
 Picul, 29. » 
 
 Pillows, 307. 
 
 Pilgrims and Pilgrimages, 62, 318. 
 Pinkerton, Collection of Voyages, 200, 205. 
 Pinto, Fernam Mendez, 23, 24, 27 — 34, 37- 
 
 40, 72, 76, 78, 553. 
 Plays, 165, 273, 422. 
 Pocket-handkerchiefs, 408. 
 Portraits, 36. 
 
 Post-houses, 146, 167, 304. 
 Portuguese trade and intercourse with Japan, 
 21, 27, 34, 76, 99, 105—108, 110, 111, 121. 
 152, 154, 186, 191, 192, 203. 
 Presents, 379. 
 
 Preble, visit to Japan, 500. 
 Princes, 119, 197—200, 277, 314—318, 431 
 lYing, Martin, 183, 186. 
 Printing, 418. 
 Prisons, 464. 
 
586 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Proclamation places, 299. 
 
 Purchas, Samuel, 130, 139, 179, 185. 
 
 Quanto, 127. 
 
 Quanwon, 255, 381. 
 
 Quan, 439, 440. 
 
 Quarterly Review (London), 485. 
 
 Radish, 462. 
 
 Raffles, 209, n., 384, n., 385, 448, 453, 457, 
 
 458. 
 Refreshment Houses, 311. 
 Remusat, 411, 425, 428. 
 Revenues, 185. 
 
 Resanoff, visit to Japan, 449 — 451. 
 Ricci, Matthew, 488. 
 Ricord, visit to Japan, 471 — 483. 
 Rice, 54, 167, 404, 462. 
 Rivers, 261, 568. 
 Roads, 147, 167, 288, 290. 
 Rodriguez, 107, 124, 128, 130 5 his Japanese 
 
 grammar, 547. 
 Rodrigo de Vivero, 141; his visit to Japan, 
 
 144—152. 
 Roofs, 297, 298, 399, 527, 529, 540. 
 Rundall, Memorials of Japan, 174. 
 Russian intercourse with Japan, 445, 449, 471 
 
 —483, 542. 
 Sakano, 331. 
 
 Sakai, 53, 80, 81, 97, 98, 123, 166, 339. 
 Said, 68, 261, 343, 542. 
 San Francisco Herald, 534. 
 Sanscrit, 63, 262, 544. 
 Santvort, Melichor, 158, 188. 
 Simoda, 504, 523, 526—528, 530, 533—542. 
 Sarauiang, voyage of the, 494. 
 Saris, John, observations in Japan, 161 — 174, 
 
 179, 261. 
 Sagaleen, 101, 203, 444, 445. 
 Science, Japanese, 69, 410. 
 Scurvy, 473. 
 Scheuchzer, 222. 
 Sea-weed, edible, 407, 461. 
 Seni. See Kas. 
 Serampore Free Press, 499. 
 Shoes, 282, 409, 521, 540. 
 Ships, Japanese, 293. 
 Shipwrecked Japanese, 445, 446. 
 Shops, 298, 539. 
 
 Skimi, or anise tree, 303, 396, 491—495. 
 Siaka, 65. 
 
 Sidney Gazette, 494. 
 Siebold, 13, 113, 257, 266, 335, 395, 414, 486, 
 
 488, 490, 547. 
 Silver, 208—210, 385, 531. 
 Simabara, 79, 192, 398. 
 Siogun. See Kubo. 
 Sinto, 66, 261. 
 
 Siegaki (religious ceremony), 322. 
 Sikokf, 53, §7, 100. 
 Siuto, 66- 
 Smuagling, 239, 249, 252, 253, 267, 300, 388, 
 
 507. 
 Sotelo, Lewis, 158, 159,189. 
 Soldiers, 166, 167, 198, 414, 451, 468, 520. 
 Solis, Jean de, 109. 
 Soy, 312, 390. 
 Spagenburg, 444. 
 Spanish intercourse with Japan, 109, 113, 126, 
 
 155, 171, 179, 186. 
 Spex, Jacob, 153—158. 
 Spinola, 186. 
 Springs, Hot, 188, 337, 488. 
 
 Stewart, Captain, alias Torrey, 446 — 448. 
 
 Steinbrossin. See Tai. 
 
 Street government, 265, 350. 
 
 Sugar, 245, 389, 466, 507, 559. 
 
 Suicide, 69. 
 
 Suruga, 99, 129, 145, 148, 168, 355. 
 
 Suwa, festival of, 226, 270. 
 
 Sweetmeats, 313. 
 
 Sweating-houses, 309, 310. 
 
 Swords, privilege of wearing, 54, 279, 483 5 
 
 manner of wearing, 221, 414, 418, 521 ; how 
 
 forged, 414. 
 Tachitay-Kachi, 474—483. 
 Tael, 22. 
 
 Tai, or Steinbrossin, 272. 
 Taiko-Sama, 112, 116, 119, 123, 125—127, 150, 
 
 343, 382. 
 Taxes, 269. 
 Tanners, 254, 265. 
 Tea, 313, 421, 466, 559. 
 Temples, 64, 210, 211, 259, 260, 300—302, 
 
 346, 358, 361, 379, 528, 530, 537. 
 Tensa, or Gokinay, 129, 563. 
 Terisio dai Dsin, 57, 60, 63, 271. 
 Teeth, practice of blacking, 393, 434, 475, 487, 
 Thevenot, 187, 200, 203. 
 Thunberg, 221, 284, 296, 297, 315, 387—423. 
 Time, divisions of, 35, 2G6 5 measures of, 396, 
 
 488. 
 Times (New York), 533. 
 Tira (Buddhist temples), 61, 300. 
 Titsingh, 35, 70, 83, 215, 266, 284, 355, 362, 
 
 365, 385, 411, 412, 420, 424—443. 
 Tobacco, 331, 347, 395. 
 Torres, de Father. See Cosme de Torres. 
 Tortures, 188, 190. 
 Towns, 298. 
 Tombstones, 395. 
 Toko (recess), 306. 
 Tokowari (closet), 307. 
 Tribune (New York), 526, 528, 537, 
 Trigault, Nicholas, 178, 179, n. 
 Tsubo (garden), 305, 306, 311. 
 Tsju (a measure), 257. 
 Uta (epigram), 335, 549. 
 Valignani, Alexander, 84—86, 99, 102, 104, 
 
 105, 108, 109, 114, 126, 130, n., 554. . 
 Vegetables, 219, 395, 462, 538. 
 Venereal diseases, 393. 
 Verhogen's fleet, 133, 134. 
 Verhceven's fleet, 142, 155. 
 Vilela, Gaspard, 76, 80—82, 443. 
 Villages, 299. 
 
 Volcanoes, 336, 429, 431, 568. 
 Voyages des Indes, 154, 187, 194, 195. 
 Voyages au Nord, 192, 200, 201, 203, 204. 
 Water (for shipping), 533. 
 Whale fishery, Japanese, 196 ; foreign, 479, 
 
 506. 
 Wheat, 146, 167, 404. 
 Windows, 296, 389, 399, 400, 541. 
 Williams, S. W., 491, 493, 514, 532, n., 558 
 Wittert, Admiral, 153. 
 Wood (timber and cabinet), 68, 408, 559 ; file, 
 
 533. 
 Xavier, Francis, 40, 42, 45—50, 71—76. 
 Ximo, or Kiusiu, 32, 53, 79, 81—83, 101, 112, 
 
 116, 130, 176, 205, 264, 289, 327. 
 Xogun-Sama, 177, 178. 
 Yam, Japanese. 394. 
 Zaccarini (Flora japonica), 490. 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 Amida. —Under this name is worshipped, in Japan, the primitive Buddha, representing, 
 in faut, the primal deity. 
 
 Adofski — A Japanese travelling trunk, or valise. 
 
 Bos. — Japanese for a bridge, as Jodo bas, bridge over the river Jodo ; Nipon bas, bridge of 
 Japan. 
 
 Bikuni. — An order of begging nuns. 
 
 Bonzes. — A Chinese term, applied to Buddhist priests. 
 
 Bujio, Bnnyo, Sanyo. — An officer or deputy, representing the Kubo, and deriving his 
 commission from him. 
 
 Daimio. — Prince of the highest rank. 
 
 Dai bods. — Great Buddha (dai signifies great), the name of a colossal image of Buddha, 
 near Miako. 
 
 Dairi, otherwise Mikado. — The hereditary emperor of Japan, but superseded, as to actual 
 power, by the Kubo. 
 
 Djogun. — See Siogun. 
 
 Dosiu, or Doosen. — Soldiers in the immediate service of the Kubo, or Siogun. 
 
 Dono. — A particle appended to names of persons, with much the force of our Mr. 
 
 Feiji, or Feke. — The name of a family celebrated in the legendary annals of Japan. 
 
 Fira-kana, or Hira-kana. — Easy, or woman's writing, syllabary for writing Japanese in 
 common use. See p. 546. 
 
 Gaiva, river, as Jodo gawa, Jodo river. As most Japanese towns are seated on rivers, this 
 word, gawa, forms the ending of many names of towns. 
 
 Ganting or Goka, otherwise, according to Siebold, Syo. — A dry measure, the sixteenth part 
 of a cubic Japanese foot, holding about three English ale pints. Half a syo or ganting of 
 rice is reckoned by the Japanese a sufficient daily allowance for a man. See pp. 54, 185. 
 
 Gobanjosi. — Government overseeing officers. The Japanese officers employed at Desima 
 to inspect the Dutch and their trade. 
 
 Gokei. — Long strips of white paper, emblems of the divine presence of the Kami. These 
 symbols are found in all Japanese houses, kept iu little portable mias. 
 
 Hara kari. — Suicide by cutting one's self open. 
 
 Itsibo, or Itsibu. — A quarter (itsi, one ; si, four ; bo, or bu, part), a coin, the fourth part 
 of a kobang. 
 
 If ay. — Tablets commemorative of the dead. 
 
 iko siu (siu means sect, or observance). — The sect or observance of the worshippers of 
 Amida, the most numerous and powerful ecclesiastical body iu Japan. 
 
 Joriki. — An inferior order of military nobles. 
 
 Jama, or Yama. — A mountain, as Fusi-no- Fama, mountain of Fusi, no being the sign of 
 the possessive or genitive case. 
 
 Jamabo, or Yamabo. — Mountain priests, an order of devotees, half Buddhist and half of 
 the ancient Japanese creed. 
 
 Kambang. — Public sale of Dutch goods, held at Desima. 
 
 Kami. — A god, or spirit. The national gods of Japan. The corresponding Chinese-Jap- 
 anese term is Sin. Kami is also employed as a title of honor. See p. 551. 
 
 Kamisimo. — A garment of ceremony, worn on festivals and other solemn occasions. It 
 consists of two parts, a short cloak, without sleeves, called katageno, and breeches like a 
 petticoat sewed up between the legs, called vakama. 
 
 Kappa. — A cloak of oiled paper — a Japanese term borrowed from the Portuguese. 
 
 Kandarin, or Candarin. — The tenth part of a mas, equal to b.S'.i grains troy. 
 
 Kongo. — A close litter, or chair, borne on men's shoulders. 
 
 E'as, or Cos. — The tenth part of a kandarin, or hundredth of a mas, near six tenths of a grain 
 troy. The same term, frequently written cash, and sometimes, in the' plural, rasses, is 
 applied to coins of copper and iron, current in China, Japan, and Eastern Asia gen- 
 erally, intended to represent the value of a kas of silver. The corresponding Japanese 
 
GLOSSAEY. 
 
 term is sent. The Dutch call them pitjes. As the dollar contains about seventy-one kan» 
 darins of silver, it should represent upwards of seven hundred of these kas. 
 
 Kata-kana, man's writing. A syllabary employed for explanations of Chinese characters. 
 See p. 546. 
 
 Kati, or Catty. — A weight of sixteen tael, or a hundred and sixty mas, equal to about a 
 pound and a third avoirdupois, the common weight in retail transactions throughout 
 the far East. 
 
 Ken, or Kin. — A measure of length, containing six Japanese feet (siak, or sasi), or, accord- 
 ing to Siebold, six siak, three bun (the bun being the tenth of the siak). Klaproth 
 makes it equal to seven feet, four and one half inches, Rhineland- measure ; but Siebold 
 states the Japanese syak as equal to eleven inches eleven lines, English measure, and 
 Kampfer always speaks of the ken as a fathom, or six feet. 
 
 Kitu, or Kitoo. — Homage, or reverence, performed by one person to another. 
 
 Kobang, or (properly) Koban. — A gold coin. For its weight and value see p. 55, 209, 383. 
 
 Kobu, kosi, or nosi. — A sort of edible sea-weed (Fucus saccharinus), strips of which are 
 attached to presents and complimentary notes. 
 
 Kokf, or Koku. — A quantity of rice, equal to one hundred gantlings, or somewhat more 
 than four and a half bushels. The integer for estimating landed revenues. See p. 54, 197. 
 
 Kokonots. — The sixth Japanese hour, closing at noon and midnight. For the Japanese 
 division of the day, see p. 266, note. It appears, from Siebold, that the names given to 
 the six Japanese hours, kokonots, yats, nanats, muts, itsuts, and yots, are the vernac- 
 ular Japanese numerals for nine, eight, seven, six, five, and four, the number of strokes 
 on a bell by which these hours are respectively indicated. For ordinary use, and espe- 
 cially in speaking of weights and measures, and always for numbers above ten, the Jap- 
 anese employ the Chinese numerals. 
 
 Kubo, or Kubo-Sama. — General, or lord general, originally the fifth officer in rank in the 
 household of the Dairi, but for several centuries past the real, reigning emperor of Japan 
 
 Kuge. — The family and courtiers of the Dairi. 
 
 Kuli. — Ordinary day laborers. 
 
 Li, or Ri. — A mile, or league (six times that of the Chinese), of which there are twenty-five 
 to a degree of latitude, equal to upwards of two and a half of our miles. 
 
 Mas. — The tenth part of a tael, equal to about fifty-eight grains troy. 
 
 Mia. — Temples for the worship of the Kami. 
 
 Matz. — A street ; also a measure of length, otherwise tsiju, equal to 60 ken, or 360 feet. 
 
 Matsuri. — Religious shows and exhibitions. 
 
 Namada. — A short prayer in Sanscrit, the pater noster of the worshippers of Amida. 
 
 Nengo. — A period of time used in dating. See p. 35. 
 
 Norimon. — A superior kind of kango. 
 
 Ottona. — The superior officer of a street. 
 
 Offari. — Indulgence box, a sort of charm, purchased of the priests. 
 
 Picul. — One hundred katti, or one hundred and thirty-three and a third pounds avoirdu- 
 pois. The common weight in the far East for heavy articles and wholesale transactions. 
 
 Quanwon. — A Buddhist saint, represented by a many-handed image, and much worshipped 
 in Japan. 
 
 Quan. — A hearse. 
 
 Saki. — An intoxicating drink, a sort of beer, made from rice. 
 
 Sama. — Lord, appended to names and titles, with much the force of the French Monsieur, 
 or our Mr. 
 
 Sent. — See Kas. 
 
 Seomio. — Princes of the second class. 
 
 Siaka. — The Japanese equivalent of Buddha, or Fo. See p. 65, note. 
 
 Sima. — Island, a common termination of Japanese names of places. 
 
 Siogun. — The Chinese-Japanese term corresponding to kubo. 
 
 Sinto. — Doctrine of the Sin, or Kami, the ancient and aboriginal religion of Japan. 
 
 Siudo. — The doctrine of Confucius, as received in Japan. 
 
 Sokano. — Eatables offered to visitors by way of refreshment. 
 
 Skuet. — Name given by the Dutch to circulating lumps of silver, stamped at the mint to 
 certify their fineness, but passing by weight, which averages about five ounces. 
 
 Tael. — A weight used in the far East equal to five hundred and eighty -three troy grains, or 
 about an ounce and a fifth troy, or an ounce and a third avoirdupois. Sixteen tael make 
 a katti. The tael and its subdivisions — the mas, kandarin, and kas — are especially used 
 in weighing the precious metals. Silver passing by weight in the far East, and forming 
 there the standard of value, accounts are kept in these denominations. The tael was 
 commonly reckoned by the Dutch as corresponding to the European crown ($1.25), which 
 made the mas equal to the Spanish eighth of a dollar. 
 
 Tira. — A Buddhist temple. 
 
 Tono. — A general term, including all the Japanese nobility. 
 
 Tsitats. — The first day of the month, observed as a holiday or Sunday. See p. 536 
 
 Tundi — A Buddhist abbot. 
 
 Tenwo, or Teno. — August of heaven, a title bestowed on the Dairi 
 
 Uta. — A brief poem, or distich. 
 

 
 \* 
 
 
 
 o o N 
 
 V 
 
 
 % 
 
 * < * A ^ 
 
 
 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 
 Treatment Date: April 2003 
 
 "^ 
 
 & r t~ 
 
 
 PreservationTechnologies L* 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION , 
 
 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111 
 
r ± V 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 ,^