Dawn of the third day found us ten miles off the north shore of the
small volcanic island that stands second in the entrance to Van Diemen
Strait. The lurid glare reflected from its crater into the ascending
clouds of smoke had served as a beacon during the last hours of
darkness. Daylight confirmed the calculations of our position by the
sight of the beautiful smoking cone of Horner’s Peak, lying twenty-five
or thirty miles to the northeast on the southern extremity of Satsuma,
and the rugged peninsula of Osumi, ending in the sharp point of Cape
Satanomi, a like distance to the eastward.
The moment our landfall was clear in the growing light, the _Sea
Flight_ came around and headed straight between the two peninsulas. A
run of three hours before the monsoon, over the bluest of white-capped
seas, brought us well up into the entrance of Kagoshima Bay, with
Horner’s Peak a few miles off on the port beam, and the bold, verdant
hills of Osumi to starboard. Close along each shore the sea broke on
half-submerged rocks, but the broad channel showed no signs of reefs
or shoals, and Downing stood boldly in, without shortening sail.
Having none of the responsibility of navigating the ship, I was able
to loll upon the rail and enjoy to the utmost the magnificent scenery
of the bay. On either shore the mountainous coast trended off to the
northward, an emerald setting to the sapphire bay, with the lofty
broken peak of a smoking volcano towering precipitously at the head of
the thirty-mile stretch of land-girded waters. Far inland still loftier
peaks cast dim outlines through the summery haze.
Every valley and sheltered mountain-side along the bay showed heavy
growths of pines and other trees, among which were scattered groups of
straw-thatched, high-peaked cottages. Many of the slopes were under
cultivation and terraced far up towards the crests, while every cove
was fringed with the straggling hovels of a fishing village.
In every direction the bay was dotted with the square white sails of
fishing smacks and small junks,--vessels that differed from Chinese
craft in the absence of bamboo ribs to the sails and still more in the
presence of the yawning port which gaped in their sterns. I concluded
that this extraordinary build was due to the Japanese policy of keeping
the population at home, for certainly none but a madman could have
dreamed of undertaking any other than a coastwise cruise in one of
these unseaworthy vessels. Another peculiarity was that not one of the
craft showed a trace of paint.
The majestic apparition of the _Sea Flight_ in their secluded haven
seemed to fill the Japanese sailors with wildest panic. One and all,
their craft scattered before her like flocks of startled waterfowl, for
the most part running inshore for shelter at the nearest villages or
behind the verdant islets that rose here and there above the rippling
blue waters. A few stood up the bay, probably to spread the alarm, but
the clipper easily overhauled and passed the swiftest.
By noon, though the wind had fallen to a light breeze, we had sailed
some thirty miles up the bay and were within three miles of the
volcano, which stood out, apparently on an island, with a deep inlet
running in on either side. On the Satsuma shore, across the mouth of
the western inlet, our glasses had long since brought to view the
gray expanse of Kagoshima, rising to a walled hill crowned with large
buildings, whose quaint, curved roofs and many-storied pagoda towers
recalled China.
All along the bay shores, great bells were booming the alarm, and
crowds of people rushed about the villages in wild disorder, while the
junks and smacks continued to fly before us as if we were pirates.
Smiling grimly at the commotion raised by his daring venture, Downing
shortened sail and stood into the opening of the western inlet until we
could make out clearly with the naked eye the general features of the
city and its citadel.
So far the lead had given us from forty to eighty fathoms. When we
found thirty fathoms with good holding ground, Downing decided that
caution was the better part of curiosity, and gave orders to let go
anchor. Hardly had we swung about to our cable when a large half-decked
clipper-built boat bore down upon us from the city with the boldness of
a hawk swooping upon a swan. The little craft was driven by the long
sculls of a number of naked brown oarsmen in the stern. Amidships and
forward swarmed twenty or thirty soldiers, clad in fantastic armor of
brass and lacquered leather, and bearing antique muskets and matchlocks.
In the stern of the guard-boat fluttered a small flag with the design
of a circled white cross, while from the staff on the prow a great
tassel of silky filaments trailed down almost to the surface of the
water. Beneath the tassel stood two men with robes of gray silk and
mushroom-shaped hats tied to their chins with bows of ribbon. I should
have taken them for priests had not each carried a brace of swords
thrust horizontally through his sash-like belt.
At a sign from the older of these officers, the boat drove in alongside
the starboard quarter. As Downing and I stepped to the rail and gazed
down upon them, the younger officer flung aboard a bamboo stick that
had been cleft at one end to hold a piece of folded paper. Downing
spun about to pick up the message. But I, calling to mind the reputed
courtesy of the Japanese, was seized with a whim to test their
reputation in this respect, and bowed profoundly to the officers,
addressing them with Oriental gravity: “Gentlemen, permit me to request
you to come aboard and favor me with your company at dinner.”
Together the two swordsmen returned my bow, slipping their hands
down their thighs to their knees and bending until their backs were
horizontal. After a marked pause they straightened, their olive faces
aglow with polite smiles, and the younger man astonished me by replying
in distinct though oddly accented English: “Honorable sir, thangs, no.
To-morrow, yes. You wait to-morrow?”
Before I could answer, his companion muttered what seemed to be a grave
remonstrance. He was replying in tones as liquid and musical as Italian
when Downing swung back beside me.
“Look here, Mr. Adams,” he grumbled, thrusting out a sheet of crinkly
yellow paper. “Just like their heathen impudence!”
I hastened to read the message, which was written, in the Chinese
manner, with an ink-brush instead of a quill, but the words were in
English, as legible and brief as they were to the point:
“You bring our people shipwrecked? Yes? Take them Nagasaki. You
come trade? Yes? Go. Cannon fire.”
Downing scowled upon the bizarre soldiers and their commanders with
contemptuous disapproval, and pointing to the message, bawled roughly:
“Ahoy, there, you yellow heathen, this ain’t any way to treat a
peaceful merchantman. Must take us for pirates.”
The younger officer looked up, with his polite smile, and asked in a
placid tone: “You come why?”
“Trade, of course. What else d’ you reckon?”
“Trade? You go Nagasaki. Thangs.”
“Nagasaki!” growled Downing. “Take me for a Dutchman? You put back,
fast as you can paddle, and tell your mandarin, or whatever he calls
himself, that here’s an American clipper lying in his harbor, ready to
buy or barter for tea, chinaware, or silks.”
“Thangs. You go Nagasaki--you go Nagasaki,” reiterated the officer,
smiling more politely than ever, and signing us down the bay with a
graceful wave of his small fan. “No get things aboard. You go Nagasaki.
Ships no can load.”
“That’s easy cured,” replied Downing. “Tell your mandarin I’ll get
under way first thing to-morrow and run in close as our draught will
let us. If we can’t come ’longside his bund, we can lighter cargo in
sampans.”
The officers exchanged quick glances, and the younger one repeated his
affable order with unshaken placidity: “You go Nagasaki. Thangs.”
Without waiting for further words, both bowed, and the older one signed
to the scullers with his fan. The men thrust off and brought their
graceful craft about with admirable dexterity. Again their officers
bent low in response to my parting bow, and the long sculls sent the
boat skimming cityward, across the sparkling water, at racing speed.
Downing nodded after them and permitted his hard mouth to relax in a
half grin. “That’s the way to talk to heathen, Mr. Adams. No begging
favors; just straight-for’a’d offer to trade. You’ll see to-morrow,
sir.”
At this moment the impatient steward announced dinner, and we hastened
below with appetites sharpened by pleasant anticipations. The more we
discussed the courteous speech and manners of our visitors the more we
became convinced that they had meant nothing by their notice to leave,
but would soon return with a cordial assent to our proposals.
To our surprise, the afternoon wore away without a second visit either
from the guard-boat or any other craft. Junk after junk and scores of
fishing smacks sailed past us cityward, but all alike held off beyond
hail. Still more noteworthy was the fact that no vessel came out of the
inlet or across from the city.
At last, shortly before sunset, we sighted four guard-boats, armed with
swivels, bearing down upon us from the nearest point of the city. Our
first thought was that we were to be attacked as wantonly as had been
the _Morrison_ and other ships that had sought to open communication
with the Japanese. But at half a cable’s length they veered to
starboard and began to circle around the _Sea Flight_ in line ahead,
forming a cordon. It was not difficult to divine that their purpose was
to prevent us from making any attempt at landing.
That they intended to maintain their patrol throughout the night
became evident to me when, after lingering over two bottles of my
choice Madeira with the skipper, I withdrew from the supper-table to
my stateroom. The cabin air being close and sweltering and my blood
somewhat heated from the wine, I turned down my reading lamp and
leaned out one of my stern windows. Refreshed by the cool puffs of the
night breeze that came eddying around the ship’s quarters as she rocked
gently on a slight swell, I soon began to heed my surroundings with all
the alertness of a sailor in a hostile port.
The night was moonless and partly overcast, but the pitch darkness
served only to make clearer the beacon fires which blazed along the
coast so far as my circle of vision extended. No beacons had been
fired immediately about Kagoshima, but the city was aglow with a soft
illumination of sufficient radiance to bring out the black outlines
of the guard-boats whenever they passed between me and the shore in
their slow circling of the ship. The booming of the bells, however, had
ceased, and the only sounds that broke the hot, damp stillness of the
night were the lapping of ripples alongside and the low creaking of the
ship’s rigging.
An hour passed and I still lolled half out of my window, puffing a
Manila cheroot, when I heard a slight splash directly below me. It was
a sound such as might be made by a leaping fish, but in Eastern waters
life often depends on instant vigilance against treachery. I drew back
on the second to grasp a revolver and extinguish the lamp. Within half
a minute I was back again at my window, peering warily down into the
blackness under the ship’s stern. There seemed to be a blot on the
phosphorescent water.
“Whoever you are,” I said in a low tone, “sheer off until daylight, or
I will fire.”
The response was an unmistakable sigh of relief, followed by an eager
whisper: “_Tojin sama_--honorable foreigner, only one man come.”
Almost at the first word I knew that my visitor was the younger officer
of the guard-boat.
“You come alone?” I demanded. “What for?”
“Make still, honorable foreigner!” he cautioned. “_Ometsuke_ hear.”
“_Ometsuke?_”
“Watchers--spies.”
“You’ve slipped through the guard-boats on a secret visit!” I
whispered, curiosity fast overcoming my caution. “Why do you come?”
“To go in ship, honorable sir,--England, ’Merica, five continents
go--no stop. In boat to pay, gold is.”
For a moment astonishment held me mute. Who had ever before heard of a
Japanese voluntarily leaving his own shores? Many as had been picked up
by whalers and clippers in the neighboring seas, I knew of no instance
where the rescued men had not been either wrecked or blown too far out
to sea to be able to navigate their miserable junks into a home port.
The thought flashed upon me that the man might be a criminal. Only
the strongest of motives could have impelled him to seek to break the
inflexible law of his country against foreign travel. But the memory of
his smiling, high-bred face was against the supposition of guilt.
He broke in upon my hesitancy with an irresistible appeal: “_Tojin
sama_, you no take me? One year I wait to board a black ship and go the
five continents.”
“Stand by,” I answered. “I’ll drop you a line. But bear in mind, no
treachery, or I’ll blow you to kingdom come!”
“Honorable sir!” he murmured, in a tone of such surprise and reproach
as to sweep away my last doubt.
Having no line handy, I whipped the bedclothes from my berth and
knotted the silken coverlet to one of the stout linen sheets. The
latter I made fast to a handle of my sea-chest, and lowered the
coverlet through the cabin window, exposing outboard as little as
possible of the white sheet.
“Stand by,” I whispered downward. “Here’s your line.”
In a moment I felt a gentle tugging at the end of the line, followed by
a soft murmur: “Honorable sir, pleased to haul.”
Though puzzled, I hauled in on the line, to which something of light
weight had been made fast. The mystery was soon solved. The end of the
line brought into my grasp two longish objects. A touch told me they
were sheathed swords. My visitor had proved his faith by first sending
up his weapons.
I cleared the line and dropped it down again, with a cordial word of
invitation: “Come aboard! Can you climb?”
“I climb, _tojin sama_,” he whispered back.
There was a short pause, and then the line taughtened. He came up with
seamanlike quickness and agility. His form appeared dimly below me as
he swung up, hand over hand. I reached out and helped him draw himself
in through the window. Pushing him aside, I sought to jerk in my line.
It taughtened with a heavy tug.
“What’s this?” I exclaimed. “You made fast to your boat. It should have
been cast adrift.”
“Boat loose is,” he replied, with unfailing suavity.
“The line is fast,” I retorted.
I felt his hands on the sheet, and he leaned past me out of the window.
“Your dunnage, of course!” I muttered, and, regretful of my impatience,
I fell to hauling with him.
One good heave cleared our load from the boat, which was left free to
drift up the harbor with wind and tide. The thought that it might be
sighted and overhauled by the guard-boat patrol quickened my pull at
the line. A few more heaves brought up to the window a cylindrical
bundle or bale, which the Japanese grasped and drew inboard before I
could lend a hand.
My visitor was aboard, dunnage and all, and, so far as I could tell, he
had not been detected either by the men of the guard-boats or the watch
above us on the poop.