IN CHINA AND JAPAN.
At Penang, in the Spice Islands, the verge of the Flowery Kingdom
seemed to have been reached. "We might say that that land had bloomed
over its own borders, and its blossoms had fallen here.... Nearly the
entire population of this island, 125,000 in all, are Chinese." At
Singapore, the town of lions, he met an American hunter named Carroll,
who lived with the natives and had won fame as a dead shot.
Fortunately for humanity, that contests with the aboriginal beasts a
possession of this part of the earth, the leonine fathers frequently
devour their cubs, else the earth would be overrun with the lions.
Seventeen days on the _Clan Alpine_ passed by, and then, on the 10th
of June, the captain pointed out the "Asses' Ears," two black specks
on the distant horizon, which gave them their first glimpse of China.
On Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Coffin had the pleasure of being told, by
the healthy-looking captain of the sampan or boat by which they were
to get ashore, that she was "a red-faced foreign devil." This was a
Chinese woman, of thirty-five or forty, who commanded the craft. The
next day, Sunday, they went to church in sedan-chairs, and sat under
the punkas or swinging-fans, which cooled the air. On Monday, while
going around with, or calling upon, the missionaries Preston, Kerr,
and Parker, the Americans who had a sense of the value of minutes
found that the "Chinese are an old people. Their empire is finished,
their civilization complete, and time is a drug." The walls of the
great Roman Catholic Cathedral, costing over four million dollars,
were then but half-way up.
Being a true Christian, without cant or guile, Carleton, as a matter
of course, was a warm friend of the missionaries, and always sought
them out to visit and cheer them. He rarely became their guest, or
accepted hospitality under the roofs either of American consuls or
missionaries, lest critics might say his views were colored by the
glasses of others. He would have his own mind and opinions judicial.
Nevertheless, he knew that those who knew the language of the people
were good guides and helpers to intelligent impressions. In Shanghai
he met Messrs. Yates, Wilson, and Thomson, and, in the Sailors'
Chapel, Rev. E. W. Syle, afterwards president of the Asiatic Society
of Japan. Carleton noticed that when the collection was taken up among
the tars present, the plate, when returned, showed several silver
dollars. The travellers went up the Yangtse in a New York built Hudson
River steamer, commanded by a Yankee captain from Cape Ann. At Wuchang
he called on Bishop Williams, whom he had met in London at the
Pan-Anglican council, and who afterwards made so noble record of work
in the Mikado's empire.
So far from being appalled at what he saw of the Chinese and their
civilization, Carleton noted many things to admire,--their democratic
spirit, their competitive civil service examinations, and their
reverence for age and parental authority. At the dinners occasionally
eaten in a Chinese restaurant, he asked no questions as to whether the
animal that furnished the meat barked, mewed, bellowed, or whinnied,
but took the mess in all good conscience.
From the middle of the Sunrise Kingdom, the passage was made on the
American Pacific mail-steamer _Costa Rica_, through a great storm. In
those days before lighthouses, the harbor of Nagasaki was reached
through a narrow inlet, which captains of ships were sometimes puzzled
to find. They steamed under and within easy range of the fifty or more
bronze cannon, mounted on platforms under sheds along the cliffs.
Except at Shimonoseki, in 1863 and 1864, when floating and fast
fortresses, steamers and land-batteries exchanged their shots, to the
worsting of the Choshiu clansmen, the military powers of the Japanese
had not yet been tested. Accepting the local traditions about the
Papists' Hill, or Papenberg, from which, in 1637, the insurgent
Christians are said to have been hurled into the sea, Carleton wrote,
"The gray cliff, wearing its emerald crown, is an everlasting memorial
to the martyr dead."
It was in this harbor that the American commander, James Glynn, in
1849, in the little fourteen-gun brig _Preble_, gave the imperious
and cruel Japanese of Tycoon times a taste of the lesson they were to
learn from McDougall and Pearson. Soon they reached Deshima, the
little island which, in Japan's modern history, might well be called
its leaven; for here, for over two centuries, the Dutch dispensed
those ideas, as well as their books and merchandise, which helped to
make the Japan of our day. Carleton's impressions of the Japanese were
that they had a more manly physique, and were less mildly tempered,
but that they were lower in morals, than the Chinese. The women were
especially eager to know the mysteries of crinoline, and anxiously
inspected the dress of their foreign sisters.
Japan, in 1868, was in the throes of civil war. The lamp of history at
that time was set in a dark lantern, and very few of the foreigners,
diplomatic, missionary, or mercantile, then in the islands, had any
clear idea of what was going on, or why things were moving as they
were. It may be safely said that only a handful of students, who had
made themselves familiar with the ancient native records, and with
that remarkable body of native literature produced in the first half
of this century, could see clearly through the maze, and explain the
origin and meaning of the movement of the great, southern clans and
daimios against the Tycoon. It was in reality the assertion of the
Mikado's imperial and historic claims to complete supremacy against
the Shogun's or lieutenant's long usurpation. It was an expression of
nationality against sections. The civil war meant "unite or die."
Carleton naturally shared in the general wrong impressions and
darkness that prevailed, and neither his letters nor his writing give
much light upon the political problem, though his descriptions of the
scenery and of the people and their ways make pleasing reading. In
reality, even as the first gun against Sumter and the resulting civil
war were the results of the clash of antagonistic principles which had
been working for centuries, so the uprising and war in Japan in
1868-70, which resulted in national unity, one government, one ruler,
one flag, the overthrow of feudalism, the abolition of ancient abuses,
and the making of new Japan, resulted from agencies set in motion over
a century before. Foreign intercourse and the presence of aliens on
the soil gave the occasion, but not the cause, of the nation's
re-birth.
The new government already in power at Kioto, under pressure of
bigoted Shintoists, revamped the ancient cult of Shinto, making it a
political engine. Persecution of the native Christians, who had lived,
with their faith uneradicated, on the old soil crimsoned by the blood
of their martyr ancestors, had already begun. Carleton found on the
steamer going North to Nagasaki one of the French missionaries in
Japan, who informed him that at least twenty thousand native
Christians were in communication with their spiritual advisers. At sea
they met the Japanese steamer named after Sir Harry Parkes, the able
and energetic British minister, who was one of the first to understand
the situation and to recognize the Mikado. This steamer had left
Nagasaki three weeks previously, with four hundred native Christians.
These had been tied, bundled, and numbered like so many sticks of
firewood, and carried northward to the mountain-crater prisons of
Kaga.
Many of these prisoners I afterwards saw. When in Boston I used to
talk with Mr. Coffin about Japanese history and politics, and of the
honored Guido F. Verbeck, one of the finest of scholars, noblest of
missionaries, and best friends of Japan. No one was more amused than
Carleton over that mistake, in his letter and book, from hearsay,
about "Mr. Verbeck, a Dutchman who is trading there" (Nagasaki).
They passed safely through the straits of Shimonoseki, admiring the
caves, the surf, the multitudes of sea-fowl, the silver streams
falling down from the heights of Kokura, on the opposite side of
Choshiu, and from mountains four thousand feet high, and made
beautiful with terraces and shrubbery. Through the narrow strait where
the water ran like a mill-race, the steamer ploughed her way. They
passed heights not then, as a few years before, dotted numerously with
the black muzzles of protruding cannon, nor fortified as they are now
with steel domes, heavy masonry, and modern artillery. Here in this
strait, in 1863, the gallant David McDougall, in the U. S. corvette
_Wyoming_, performed what was perhaps the most gallant act ever
wrought by a single commander in a single ship, in the annals of our
navy. Here, in 1864, the United States, in alliance with three
European Powers, went to war with one Parrott gun under Lieutenant
Pierson on the _Ta-Kiang_.
Like nearly all other first gazers upon the splendid panorama of the
Inland Sea, Carleton was enthralled with the ever changing beauty,
while interested in the busy marine life. At one time he counted five
hundred white wings of the Old Japan's bird of commerce, the junk. At
the new city of Hiogo, with the pretty little settlement of Kobe yet
in embryo, they spent a happy day, having Dr. W. A. P. Martin to read
for them the inscriptions in the Chinese characters on the Shinto
temple stones and tablets.
The ship then moved northward, through that wonder river in the ocean,
the Kuro-Shiwo, or Black Current, the Gulf Stream of the Pacific,
first discovered and described by the American captain, Silas Bent.
The great landmarks were clearly visible,--Idzu, with its mountains
and port of Shimoda, where Townsend Harris had won the diplomatic
victory which opened Japan to foreign residence and commerce;
white-hooded Fuji San, looking as chaste and pure as a nun, with her
first dress of summer snow; Vries Island, with its column of gray
smoke. Further to the east were the Bonin Islands, first visited by
Captain Reuben Coffin, of Nantucket, in the ship _Transit_, in 1824.
When past Saratoga Spit, Webster Isle, and Mississippi Bay, the party
stepped ashore at Yokohama, where on the hill was a British regiment
in camp. The redcoats had been ordered from India during the dangers
consequent upon civil strife, and belonged to the historic Tenth
Regiment, which Carleton's grandfather and his fellow patriots had met
on Bunker Hill.
It was a keen disappointment to Carleton not to be able to see Tokio,
then forbidden to the tourist, because of war's commotion. A heavy
battle had been fought July 4, 1868, at Uyeno, of old the place of
temples, and now of parks and exhibitions, in the northern part of the
city. The Mikado's forces then moved on the strongholds of the rebels
at Aidzu, but foreigners knew very little of what was then going on.
After a visit to the mediaeval capital of the Shoguns, at Kamakura, he
took the steamer southward to Nagasaki, and again set his face
eastward. He was again a traveller to the Orient, that is, to America.
On the homeward steamer, the _Colorado_, were forty-one first-class
passengers, of whom sixteen were going to Europe, taking this new, as
it was the nearest and cheapest, way home. Below deck were one
thousand Chinese. Before the steamer got out of the harbor it stopped,
at the request of Admiral Rowan, and four unhappy deserters were taken
off.
The Pacific Ocean was crossed in calm. It seemed but a very few days
of pleasant sailing on the great peaceful ocean,--with the days'
gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, which hollowed out of the sky caverns
upon caverns of light full of color more wonderful than Ali Baba's
treasure-chamber, and nights spiritually lovely with the silvery light
of moon and stars. On August 15th, 1868, they passed through the
Golden Gate, and "Aladdin's palace of the West," the cosmopolitan city
of San Francisco, was before their eyes.
Not more wonderful than the things ephemeral and the strange changes
going on in the city, wherein were very few old men, but only the
young and strong of many nations, were the stabilities of life.
Carleton found time to examine and write about education, the
libraries, churches, asylums, charities, and the beginnings of
literature, science, and art. In one of the schools he found them
debating "whether Congress was right in ordering Major Andre to be
executed." Lest some might think Carleton lacking in love to "Our Old
Home," we quote, "It is neither politic, wise, nor honest to instill
into the youthful mind animosity towards England or any other nation,
especially for acts committed nearly a century ago."
In his youth he had played the battles of Bunker Hill and Bennington,
in which his living ancestors had fought, and of which they had told
him,--using the roadside weeds as British soldiers, and sticks,
stones, and a cornstalk knife for weapons. In after-life, he often
expressed the emphatic opinion that our school histories were
viciously planned and written, preserving a spirit that boded no good
for the future of our country and the world. In the nineties, he was
asked by the Harpers to write a history of the United States for young
people. This he hoped to do, correcting prejudices, and emphasizing
the moral union between the two nations using English speech; but all
too soon the night came when he could not do the work proposed.
Remaining in California over two months, Carleton started eastward in
the late autumn over the Central Pacific railway, writing from Salt
Lake City what he saw and knew about Mormonism and the polygamy and
concubinage there shamefully prevalent. From the town of Argenti,
leaving the iron rails, they enjoyed and suffered seven days and
nights of staging until smooth iron was entered upon once more. They
passed several specimens of what Carleton called "pandemonium on
wheels,"--those temporary settlements swarming with gamblers and the
worst sort of human beings, male and female. They abode some time in
the city of Latter Day Saints. They saw Chicago. "Home Again" was sung
before Christmas day. Once more he breathed the salt air of Boston.
Carleton wrote a series of letters on "The Science of Travel," showing
where, when, and for how much, one could enjoy himself in the various
countries and climates in going around the world.
Carleton summed up his impressions after completing the circuit of the
globe in declaring that three aggressive nations, England, Russia, and
the United States, were the chief makers of modern history,--America
being the greatest teacher of them all, and "our flag the symbol of
the world's best hope."