those who took the southern road traveled by the Great Salt Lake to
the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and so into California. The northern road
lay partly along the course of the Snake River to the headwaters of the
Humboldt, and from there the emigrants might choose a path still farther
to the north toward the Columbia River, or westward to the Sacramento.
Many went by the trail along the Humboldt, although this route was one
of the most difficult. "The river had no current," said one of the
gold-hunters. "No fish could live in its waters, which wound through
a desert, and there was not enough wood in the whole valley to make a
snuff-box, nor vegetation enough on its banks to shelter a rabbit. The
stream flowed through desert sands, which the summer heat made almost
unbearable for men and horses." Following its course the travelers came
to a lake of mud, surrounded for miles by a sandy plain. Across this
they had to march for thirty-four hours to reach the Carson River. Along
the trail lay the bodies of horses, mules, and oxen, and broken wagons
parched and dried out in the blazing sun.
The first of the overland travelers who crossed the mountains late in
the summer brought such reports to the officers at the Pacific posts
that the latter decided that relief parties must be sent back to help
those who were still toiling in the desert. It was known that some had
been attacked by Indians, and obliged to leave their covered wagons;
that some had lost all their cattle, and were almost without food.
Therefore relief parties were hurried into the mountains from the
western side. They found the overland trail crowded with men on foot and
in wagons. Many were sick, and almost all were hungry. One man carried
a child in his arms, while a little boy trudged by his side, and his
invalid wife rode on a mule. The soldiers gave food to all who needed
it, and urged them to push on to the army posts. Day after day they met
the same stream of emigrants, all bent on reaching the golden fields of
California.
Late in the autumn, with winter almost at hand, the voyagers were still
crossing the deserts and mountains. The soldiers could not induce many
of them to throw away any of their goods. They crept along slowly, their
wagons loaded from baseboard to roof. The teams, gradually exhausted,
began to fall, and progress was almost impossible. Then the rescuers
hurried the women to near-by settlements, and forced the men to abandon
some of their baggage in an effort to reach shelter before the winter
storms should come. By the end of November almost all the overland
emigrants had crossed the mountains.
[Illustration: THE TEAMS, EXHAUSTED, BEGAN TO FAIL]
The city of San Francisco had sprung up almost overnight. In 1835 a
Captain Richardson had landed on the shore of Yerba Buena Cove, and
built a hut of four redwood posts, covered by a sail. Five years
afterward this village of Yerba Buena contained about fifty people and
a dozen houses. In 1846 the American war-ship _Portsmouth_ anchored
there, and her captain raised the "Stars and Stripes" on the Plaza. At
that time there were not more than fifty houses and two hundred people.
When the town became American the Plaza was renamed Portsmouth Square,
and a year later the settlement was christened San Francisco. That was
in January, 1847; and by midsummer of 1849 the town had become a city.
It was an odd place to look at. The houses were made of rough unpainted
boards, with cotton nailed across the walls and ceiling in place of
plaster; and many a thriving business was carried on in canvas tents.
There were few homes. The city was crowded; but most of the population
did not intend to stay. They came to buy what they needed, or sell what
they brought with them, and then hasten away to the mines. So many eager
strangers naturally drove the prices up enormously, especially when
it seemed as though gold could be had for the taking. The restaurants
charged three dollars for a cup of coffee, a slice of ham, and two eggs.
Houses and lots sold for from ten thousand to seventy-five thousand
dollars each, and everything else was in proportion. What happened in
San Francisco also happened in many other California towns. Sacramento
was the result of the gold-craze. Speculators bought large tracts of
land in any attractive place, gave it a high-sounding name, and sold
city lots. Many of these so-called cities, however, shriveled up
within a year or two. The seaports flourished because they were the
gateways through which the newcomers passed in their rush to locate in
the gold country.
These seaports became the goal of merchants everywhere. Necessary
articles were so scarce that they were shipped long distances. Flour
was brought from Australia and Chili, rice and sugar from China, and
the cities along the Atlantic provided the dry-goods, the tools,
and the furniture. At one time a cotton shirt would sell for forty
dollars, a tin pan for nine, and a candle for three. But on the other
hand cargoes of goods that were not needed, silks and satins, costly
house-furnishings, were left on the beaches and finally sold for a song.
From the seaports the new arrivals hurried either up the Sacramento and
the Feather Rivers to the northern gold fields, or up the San Joaquin
to the southern country. Usually they were guided by the latest story
of a rich find, and went where the chances seemed best. Several men
would join forces and pitch their tents together, naming their camp
Rat-trap Slide, Rough and Ready Camp, Slap-jack Bar, Mad Mule Gulch,
Git-up-and-Git, You Bet, or any other name that struck their fancy.
There were no laws to govern these little settlements, and the men
adopted a rough system of justice that suited themselves. But as the
numbers increased it was evident that California must have a better
form of government, and steps were taken to have that rich stretch of
land along the Pacific admitted as a state to the United States.
In three years California had grown from the home of about two thousand
people to the home of eighty thousand. The finding of gold had changed
that almost unknown wilderness into a thriving land in the twinkling of
an eye. Railroads were built to reach it, and more and more men poured
west. Some men made great fortunes, but more in a few months abandoned
their claims and drifted to the cities, or made their way slowly back
to the eastern farms and villages from which they had set out. The
Forty-niners, as the gold-seekers were called, found plenty of adventure
in California, even if they did not all find a short-cut to wealth.
IX
HOW THE UNITED STATES MADE FRIENDS WITH JAPAN
One of the beautiful names that the Japanese have given to their country
is "Land of Great Peace," and at no time was this name more appropriate
than in the middle of the nineteenth century. Two hundred years before
the last of the civil wars of Japan had come to an end, and the people,
weary of years of bloodshed, had turned delightedly to peaceful ways.
The rice-fields were replanted, artisans returned to their crafts,
shops opened again, and poets and painters followed the call of their
arts. The samurai, or warriors, sheathed their swords, though they
still regarded them as their very souls. They hung their armor in their
ancestral halls, and spent their time in sport or idleness. The daimios,
or nobles of Japan, lived either in the city of Yedo or at their country
houses, taking their ease, and gradually forgetting the arts of war on
which their power had been founded. All the people were quite contented,
and had no desire to trade with the rest of the world. As a matter of
fact they knew almost nothing about other countries, except through
English or Russian sailors who occasionally landed on their coasts.
Japan was satisfied to be a hermit nation.
On the afternoon of the seventh day of July, 1853, or the third day of
the sixth month of Kayéi, in the reign of the Emperor Koméi, the farmers
working in the muddy rice-fields near the village of Uraga saw a strange
sight. It was a clear summer afternoon, and the beautiful mountain Fuji,
its cone wreathed in white clouds, could be seen from sea and shore.
What startled the men in the fields, the people in the village, and the
boatmen in the harbor, was a fleet of vessels coming to anchor in the
bay of Yedo. These monsters, with their sails furled, although they were
heading against the wind, were shooting tongues of smoke from their
great black throats. "See the fire-vessels!" cried the Japanese to each
other. When the peasants asked the priests where the monsters came from
the wise men answered that they were the fire-vessels of the barbarians
who lived in the West.
The monsters were four ships of the United States navy, the
_Mississippi_, _Susquehanna_, _Plymouth_, and _Saratoga_, all under
command of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry. The fleet dropped anchor
in the wide bay, forming a line broadside to the shore. The gun-ports
were opened, and sentries set to guard against attack by pirates, or
by fire-junks. As the anchors splashed in the water rockets shot up
from one of the forts on shore signaling to the court at Yedo that the
barbarians had reached Japan.
The town of Uraga was usually not a very busy place, and the government
officers spent their time drinking tea, smoking, and lounging in the
sun, and occasionally collecting custom duties from junks bound to other
harbors. But there was a great bustle on the day the strange ships
arrived. The chief magistrate, or buni[=o], his interpreter, and suite
of attendants, put on their formal dress of hempen cloth, and fastened
their lacquered ornamented hats to their heads; with two swords in each
belt, the party marched to the shore and boarded their state barge.
Twelve oarsmen rowed it to the nearest foreign ship, but when they
tried to fasten ropes to the vessel so that they might go on board, the
barbarians threw off the ropes, and gestured to them to keep away.
The Japanese officer was surprised to find that, although he was
gorgeously robed, and his companions carried spears and the Tokugawa
trefoil flag, the barbarians were not at all impressed. They told him,
through an interpreter, that their commander wished to confer with the
governor himself. The officer answered that the governor was not allowed
to board foreign ships. After some further discussion the surprised
Japanese was permitted to climb the gangway ladder and meet the
barbarians on the deck of their vessel.
Commodore Perry knew that the Japanese loved mystery, high-sounding
names, and ceremonies, and so he stayed in his cabin and would not show
himself to the visitors. A secretary carried his messages, and explained
that the mysterious commodore had come on a friendly mission and bore
a letter from the President of the United States to the Emperor of
Japan, which he wished to present with all proper ceremony. He declined
to go to Nagasaki, and insisted that he should remain in Yedo Bay,
and added that although his visit was entirely friendly, he would not
allow any inquisitive sightseers to prowl about his fleet. Very much
impressed with the power of this hidden barbarian, the Japanese officer
immediately ordered all the small boats, the punts and sampans that had
gathered about the fleet, to row away.
The officer and his body-guard returned to shore, and told the villagers
that the visitors were very remarkable men, who were not at all
impressed by their costumes or weapons. The Japanese had no such title
as commodore in their language, and they referred to Perry as Admiral,
and credited him with almost as much majesty as their own hidden Mikado,
or as the mighty Shogun.
The western coast of Japan was much excited that night. Rockets from the
forts, and huge watch-fires on the cliffs, told the whole country that
a most unusual event had happened. The peasants set out their sacred
images, and prayed to them as they had not done in years. It was evident
that the gods of Japan were punishing the people for their neglect
by sending these great fire-vessels to disturb the coast. To add to
the general excitement a wonderful light appeared in the sky about
midnight, spreading a pale red and blue path across the heavens, as
though a dragon were flying through space. Priests and soothsayers made
the most of this display of Northern Lights, and pointed out that the
fire-vessels, clearly revealed in the harbor, must have something to do
with the strange omen.
The governor of Uraga himself, with a retinue of servants, all clad in
embroidered gowns and lacquered helmets, and each carrying two swords,
went out to the flag-ship next morning. He had evidently overlooked
the fact that the barbarians had been told on the day before that
the governor could not pay such a visit to their fleet. The governor
was used to being received with a great deal of attention, and to
having people bow to the ground as he went by; but on the deck of the
_Susquehanna_ the sailors looked at him with simple curiosity, and when
he asked to speak with the mysterious admiral, he was told that he
would only be allowed to speak with the captains. These men said that
their commander would only wait three days for an answer from Yedo as
to whether the Mikado would receive the letter of the President. They
showed him the magnificent box that held the letter, and the governor's
curiosity grew even greater. When he left the flag-ship he had promised
to urge the Americans' cause.
Next day, the men dressed in silk and brocade, painted helmets, and
gleaming sashes, eager to visit the ships again, were surprised to learn
that the barbarian prince would transact no business. His interpreter
declared that it was a day of religious observance, known as Sunday.
The people on shore heard the sailors of the fleet singing hymns,
a strange sound in those waters. Hastily the Japanese offered new
presents at the shrines of their own gods to ensure protection from the
barbarians. 8 By now the hermit people thought they might have to guard
themselves, and began to build earthworks along the shore. Farmers,
fishermen, shopkeepers, women, and children were pressed into service.
Rude embankments were thrown up, and enormously heavy brass cannon
were placed at openings. The old samurai, who had almost forgotten
warfare, sought out their weapons, and gathered their troops. Their
armor consisted of jackets of silk, iron and paper. Their arms were old
matchlocks and spears. They could have fought each other, but they were
several hundred years behind the barbarians in military matters. On
the hills they set up canvas tents, with flags bearing flaming dragons
and the other emblems of their clans. In the days of their civil wars
bright-colored trappings had played an important part.
Yedo was then the chief city of Japan. When Perry arrived in 1853 it
was the home of the Shogun Iyéyoshi, who was the real ruler of the
land, although the Mikado was called the sovereign. Yedo had been the
home of a long line of Shoguns of the Tokugawa family who had ruled
the country, calling themselves "Tycoons." They had built up the city,
and filled it with palaces and temples that had never been equaled in
magnificence. The people of Yedo, numbering over a million, were greatly
excited when they heard of the fleet of war-ships lying in their great
bay. The Shogun, his courtiers and his warriors bestirred themselves at
once. Soldiers were summoned, armor polished, swords unsheathed, castles
repaired, and everything possible done to make an impression on the
strangers.
The chief men knew that they could not oppose this foreign admiral. Once
they had had war-vessels of their own, but years of peace had reduced
their navy, and they could not defend their coasts. The Shogun was
afraid that the admiral might insist upon seeing the Mikado at Ki[=o]to,
and that would be a great blow to his own dignity. After hours of
debate and discussion he chose two daimios to receive the letter of the
American President, Millard Fillmore, and sent word to all coast towns
to man their forts.
Perry had played the game well, and so far had allowed no Japanese
to see him. He wanted to make a treaty with Japan, and he knew that
to succeed he must impress this Oriental people with his dignity. He
allowed his captains and two daimios to arrange a meeting to be held
at a little town called Kurihâma, near the port of Uraga. Each side
had tried to outdo the other in politeness. The American captains had
received the Japanese officers with great respect, had served them
wines, and seated them in upholstered armchairs. The Japanese regretted
that they could not provide their guests with armchairs or with wine on
shore, but the visitors assured them that they would be willing to adopt
Japanese customs.
By July 13th the scene for the meeting was ready. Hundreds of yards of
canvas, with the Tokugawa trefoil, had been stretched along the road to
Kurihâma. Hundreds of retainers, clad in all the colors of their feudal
days, were gathered about the tents, and on the beach stood as many
soldiers, glittering in their lacquered armor. The American officers
were almost as brilliantly dressed as the Japanese. They wore coats
with a great many bright brass buttons, and curious shaped hats cocked
on their heads. They brought musicians with them who played on cornets
and drums, and the music was quite unlike anything the natives had ever
heard before. Three hundred of the barbarians landed and marched from
the beach to the main tent, while the eager-eyed people lined the road
and wondered at their strange appearance.
Two or three big sailors carried the American flag, and back of them
came two boys with the mysterious red box that had been shown to the
officers of the port. Back of them marched the great commodore, clad in
full uniform, and on either side of him strode a black man armed with a
large sabre. Many of the Japanese had never seen a white man before, and
still fewer had ever looked upon a negro. They were therefore very much
impressed by the procession.
The officers of the Shogun received their magnificent visitor at the
door of the pavilion. After greetings the two boys handed the box to the
negro guards, who opened the scarlet cloth envelope and the gold-hinged
rosewood cases, and laid the President's letter on a lacquered stand
brought from Yedo. A receipt for the President's letter was then handed
to the commodore, who said that he would return to Japan the next
spring, probably in April or May. The meeting lasted half an hour, and
then, with the same pomp and ceremony, the Americans returned to their
ships.
For eight days the fleet remained in the bay. One party of sailors
landed, but made no trouble, and was actually so polite that the
people offered them refreshments of tea and fruit. At close range the
barbarians were not so terrifying as the natives had thought them at
first, and when they embarked for their fleet the people urged them to
come back again. On July 17th the war-ships steamed away, leaving the
cliffs covered with people, who gazed in astonishment at vessels that
had no canvas spread, but were driven entirely by fire.
Perry's object in visiting Japan was to obtain a treaty that would allow
trade relations between the United States and this hermit nation. He
wanted to give the Japanese people time to consider President Fillmore's
letter, and so he planned to keep his squadron in Eastern waters until
the following spring, when he would return to learn the result of his
mission at Yedo. There was much of interest to him in China, and he
spent the autumn and part of the winter making charts of that coast, and
visiting ports where American merchants were already established.
Meantime the letter of the American President had caused great
excitement in Japan. Almost as soon as Perry left a messenger was sent
to the Shinto priests at the shrines of Isé to offer prayers for the
peace of the empire, and to urge that the barbarians be swept away. A
week later the Shogun Iyéyoshi died, and left the government at odds as
to what to do.
Some of the daimios remembered the military ardor of their ancestors,
and wanted to fight the barbarians, rather than make a treaty with
them. Others thought that it would be madness to oppose an enemy who
had such powerful ships that they could capture all the Japanese junks,
and destroy the coast cities. One powerful nobleman declared that it
would be well for Japan to meet the barbarians, and learn from them
how to build ships and lead armies, so that they would be able in time
to defeat them at their own arts. The Mikado had little to do in the
discussion. The actual ruler was the new Shogun Iyésada, son of the
former Shogun.
While Commodore Perry was cruising along the coast of China he heard
that French and Russian merchants were planning to visit Japan. He was
afraid that his country might lose the benefits of his visit unless
he could obtain a treaty before these other countries did. Therefore,
although a midwinter cruise to Japan was difficult and dangerous, he
determined to risk this and return at once. Four ships set sail for Yedo
Bay February 1, 1854, and a week later the commodore followed with three
others.
In the city of Yedo the new Shogun was very busy preparing either for
peace or war. A long line of forts was hurriedly built on the edge of
the bay in front of the city. Thousands of laborers were kept at work
there, a great number of cannon were cast, and shops worked day and
night turning out guns and ammunition. An old law had directed that all
vessels of a certain size were to be burned, and only small coasting
junks built. This law was repealed, and all the rich daimios hurriedly
built war-ships. These ships flew a flag representing a red sun on a
white background, and this later became the national flag of Japan. A
native who had learned artillery from the Dutch was put in charge of the
soldiers; old mediæval methods of fighting were abandoned, and artillery
that was somewhat like that of European countries was adopted.
In spite of all this bustle and preparation, however, the Shogun and his
advisers thought it would be wisest for them to agree to a treaty with
the United States. Therefore a notice was issued on December 2, 1853,
which stated that "owing to want of military efficiency, the Americans
would, on their return, be dealt with peaceably." At the same time the
old practice of Fumi-yé, which consisted in trampling on the cross and
other emblems of Christianity, and which had been long practiced in the
city of Nagasaki, was abolished.
Some men in the country were insisting that the time had come for the
Japanese to visit the West, and learn the new arts and trades. One of
these was a scholar, Sakuma, who urged the government to send Japanese
youths to Europe to learn shipbuilding and navigation. The Shogun did
not approve of this idea; but a pupil of the scholar, named Yoshida
Shoin, heard of it, and decided to go abroad by himself. Sakuma gave him
money for his expenses, and advised him how he might get passage on one
of the American ships, when the fleet should return to Japan.
As soon as the Shogun learned that Commodore Perry was about to return
he chose Hayâshi, the chief professor of Chinese in the university,
to serve as interpreter. The Americans had used Chinese scholars in
their communications with the Japanese, and Hayâshi was a man of great
learning and courtly manners. The Shogun also found a native who
understood English, although the Americans did not know this. This man,
Nakahama Manjiro, with two companions, had been picked up at sea by an
American captain, and taken to the United States, where he obtained a
good education. He and his two mates then decided that they would return
to their native land, and went to Hawaii, where they built a whale-boat,
and then sailed for the coast of China on board an American merchantman.
In time the wanderers reached home, and when the Shogun heard of
Manjiro's travels he made him a samurai, or wearer of two swords. The
whale-boat that he had built was used as a model for others, and the
traveler taught his friends some of the knowledge of the Western people.