THE FIRE-VESSELS OF THE WESTERN BARBARIANS.
AMONG the many names of their beautiful country, the Japanese loved none
more than that of “Land of Great Peace,”—a breath of grateful repose
after centuries of war. The genius of Iyéyasŭ had, in the seventeenth
century, won rest, and nearly a quarter of a millennium of quiet
followed. The fields trampled down by the hoof of the war-horse and the
sandal of the warrior had been re-planted, the sluices and terraces
repaired, and seed time and harvest passed in unintermitting succession.
The merchant bought and sold, laid up tall piles of gold kobans, and
thanked Daikokŭ and Amida for the blessings of wealth and peace. The
shop keeper held a balance of two hundred _rios_ against the day of
devouring fire or wasting sickness, or as a remainder for his children
after the expenses of his funeral. The artisan toiled in sunny content,
and at daily prayer, thanked the gods that he was able to rear his
family in peace. Art and literature flourished. The samurai, having no
more use for his sword, yet ever believing it to be “his soul,” wore it
as a memento of the past and guard for the future. He lounged in the
tea-houses disporting with the pretty girls; or if of studious tastes,
he fed his mind, and fired his heart with the glories of Old Japan. As
for the daimiōs, they filled up the measure of their existence,
alternately at Yedo, and in their own dominions, with sensual luxury,
idle amusement, or empty pomp. All, all was profound peace. The arrows
rusted in the arsenals, or hung glittering in vain display, made into
screens or designs on the walls. The spears stood useless on their butts
in the vestibules, or hung in racks over the doors hooded in black
cloth. The match-locks were bundled away as curious relics of war long
distant, and for ever passed away. The rusty cannon lay unmounted in the
castle yards, where the snakes and the rats made nests and led forth
their troops of young for generations.
Upon this scene of calm—the calm of despotism—broke the vision of “the
black ships at Uraga.” At this village, long noted for its _Midzu-amé_
or rice-honey, the Japanese were to have their first taste of modern
civilization. Its name, given nine, perhaps eleven centuries before, was
auspicious, though they knew it not. The Chinese characters, sounded
Ura-ga, mean “Coast Congratulation.” At first a name of foreboding, it
was to become a word of good cheer!
“The fire-vessels of the western barbarians are coming to defile the
Holy Country,” said priest and soldier to each other on the afternoon of
the third day of the sixth month of Kayéi, in the reign of the Emperor
Koméi. The boatman at his sculls and the junk sailor at the tiller gazed
in wonder at the painted ships of the western world. The farmer,
standing knee deep in the ooze of the rice fields, paused to gaze,
wondering whether the barbarians had harnessed volcanoes. With wind
blowing in their teeth and sails furled, the monsters curled the white
foam at their front, while their black throats vomited sparks and smoke.
To the gazers at a distance, as they looked from their village on the
hill tops, the whole scene seemed a mirage created, according to their
childhood’s belief, by the breath of clams. The Land of Great Peace lay
in sunny splendor. The glorious cone of Fuji capped with fleecy clouds
of white, never looked more lovely. Even the great American admiral must
surely admire the peerless mountain.[26] The soldiers in the fort on the
headlands, obeying orders, would forbear to fire lest the fierce
barbarians should begin war at once. The rocket signal would alarm great
Yedo. The governor at Uraga would order the foreigners to Nagasaki.
Would they obey? The bluff whence the _Morrison_ had been fired upon
years before, once rounded, would the barbarians proceed further up the
bay? Suspense was short. The great splashing of the wheels ceased. As
the imposing line lay within an arrow’s range, off the shore, the
rattling of the anchor-chains was heard even on land. The flukes gripped
bottom at the hour of the cock (5 P. M.)
The yakunin or public business men of Uraga had other work to do that
day than to smoke, drink tea, lounge on their mats, or to collect the
customs from junks bound to Yedo. As soon as the ships were sighted, the
buniō, his interpreter, and satellites, donned their ceremonial dress of
hempen cloth and their lacquered hats emblazoned with the Tokugawa
trefoil, thrust their two swords in their belts, their feet in their
sandals, and hied to the water’s edge. Their official barge propelled by
twelve scullsmen shot out to the nearest vessel. By their orders a
cordon of boats provisioned for a stay on the water was drawn around the
fleet; but the crews, to their surprise could not fasten their lines to
the ships nor climb up on board. The “hairy barbarians,” as was not the
case with previous visitors, impolitely pitched off their ropes, and
with cocked muskets and fixed bayonets really threatened to use the ugly
tools if intruders mounted by the chains. A great many _naru hodo_ (the
equivalent of “Well I never!” “Is it possible?” “Indeed!”) were
ejaculated in consequence.
Mr. Nakashima Saburosŭké (or, in English, Mr. Middle Island, Darling No.
3) vice-governor, and an officer of the seventh or eighth rank, was
amazed to find that even he, a yakunin and dressed in _kami-shimo_
uniform, his boat flying the governor’s pennant, and his bearers holding
spears and the Tokugawa trefoil flag, could not get on board. The
_i-jin_ (outlanders) did not even let down their gangway ladder, when
motioned to do so. This was cause for another official _naru hodo_. The
barbarians wished to confer with the governor himself. Only when told
that the law forbade that functionary from boarding foreign ships, did
they allow Mr. Nakashima and his interpreter Hori Tatsunosūké (Mr. Conch
Dragon-darling,) to board. Even then, he was not allowed to see the
grand high yakunin of the fleet, the Commodore, who was showing himself
master of Japanese tactics.
Perry was playing Mikado. The cabin was the abode of His High Mighty
Mysteriousness. He was for the time being Kin-réi, Lord of the Forbidden
Interior. He was Tennō, (son of the skies) and Tycoon (generalissimo)
rolled into one. His Lieutenant Contee acted as Nai-Dai-Jin, or Great
Man of the Inner Palace. A tensō, or middle man, secretary or clerk,
carried messages to and fro from the cabin, but the child of the gods
with the topknot and two swords knew it not. Since the hermits of Japan
were not familiar [with] the rank of Commodore, but only of Admiral,
this title came at once and henceforth into use. The old proverb
concerning the prophet and his honors abroad found new illustration in
all the negotiations, and Perry enjoyed more fame at the ends of the
earth than at home.
Mr. Nakashima Saburosŭké was told the objects for which the invisible
Admiral came. He had been sent by the President of the United States on
a friendly mission. He had a letter addressed to “the emperor.” He
wished an officer of proper rank to be chosen to receive a copy, and
appoint a day for the momentous act of accepting with all the pomp and
ceremony and circumstance, so august a document from so mighty a ruler,
of so great a power. The Admiral would _not_ go to Nagasaki. With
imperturbable gravity of countenance, but with many mental _naru hodo_,
the dazed native listened. The letter must be received where he then
was.
Further, while the intentions of the admiral were perfectly friendly, he
would allow of no indignity. If the guard-boats were not _immediately_
removed, they would be dispersed by force. Anxious above all things to
preserve peace with the _i-jin_ or barbarians, the functionary of Uraga
rose immediately, and ordered the punts, sampans and guard-boats away.
This, the first and master move of the mysterious and inaccessible
Commodore in the game of diplomacy, practiced with the Riu Kiu regent
was repeated in Yedo Bay. The foiled yakunin, clothed with only a shred
of authority, could promise nothing, and went ashore. There is scarcely
a doubt that he ate less rice and fish that evening. Perhaps he left his
bowl of _miso_ (bean-sauce) untasted, his _shiru_ (fish soup) unsipped.
The probabilities approach certainty that he smoked a double quota of
pipes of tobacco. A “hairy” barbarian had snubbed a yakunin. Naruhodo!
Darkness fell upon the rice fields and thatched dwellings. The blue
waters were spotted with millions of white jelly-fishes looking as
though as many plates of white porcelain were floating submerged in a
medium of their own density. Within the temples on shore, anxious
congregations gathered to supplicate the gods to raise tempests of wind
such as centuries ago swept away the Mongol armada and invaders. The
“divine breath” had wrought wonders before, why not now also?
Indoors, dusty images and holy pictures were cleansed, the household
shrines renovated, fresh oil supplied to the lamps, numerous candles
provided, and prayers uttered such as father and mother had long since
ceased to offer. The gods were punishing the people for neglect of their
altars and for their wickedness, by sending the “ugly barbarians” to
destroy their “holy country.” Rockets were shot up from the forts, and
alarm fires blazed on the headlands. These were repeated on the hills,
and told with almost telegraphic rapidity the story of danger far
inland. The boom of the temple bells, and the sharp strokes on those of
the fire-lookouts, kept up the ominous sounds and spread the news.
For several years past unusual portents had been seen in the heavens,
but that night a spectacle of singular majesty and awful interest
appeared. At midnight the whole sky was overspread with a luminous blue
and reddish tint, as though a flaming white dragon were shedding floods
of violet sulphurous light on land and sea. Lasting nearly four hours,
it suffused the whole atmosphere, and cast its spectral glare upon the
foreign ships, making hull, rigging and masts as frightfully bright as
the Taira ghosts on the sea of Nagatō. Men now living remember that
awful night with awe, and not a few in their anxiety sat watching
through the hours of darkness until, though the day was breaking, the
landscape faded from view in the gathering mist.
The morning dawned. The barbarians had remained tranquil during the
night. The unhappy yakunin probably forgot the lie[27] he had told the
day before, for at 7 o’clock by the foreigners’ time, the governor
himself, Kayama Yézayémon, with his satellites arrived off the
flag-ship. Its name, the _Susquehanna_, struck their fancy pleasantly,
because the sound resembled those of “bamboo” (suzuki) and “flower”
(hana). The grand dignitary of Uraga in all the glory of embroidery,
gilt brocade, swords, and lacquered helmet with padded chin straps,
ascended the gangway as if climbing to the galleries of a wrestling
show. Alas, that the barbarians, who did not even hold their breath,
should be so little impressed by this living museum of decorative art.
There was not one of them that fell upon his hands and knees. Not one
Jack Tar swabbed the deck with his forehead. Some secretly snickered at
the bare brown legs partly exposed between the petticoat and the blue
socks. This buniō in whose very name are reflected the faded glories of
the old imperial palace guard in medieval Kiōto, was accustomed to ride
in splendid apparel on a steed emblazoned with crests, trappings and
tassels, its mane in pompons, and its tail encased, like an umbrella, in
a silk bag. His attendant outwalkers moved between rows of prone palms
and faces, and of upturned top-knots and shining pates. Now, he felt ill
at ease in simple sandals on the deck of a mighty ship. The “hairy
foreigners” were taller than he, notwithstanding his lacquered helmet.
In spite of silk trousers, and rank one notch higher than the official
of yesterday, he was unable to hold personal intercourse with the Lord
of the Forbidden Interior. The American Tycoon could not be seen. The
buniō met only the San Dai Jin, Captains Buchanan and Adams, and
Lieutenant Contee. A long discussion resulted in the unalterable
declaration that the Admiral would NOT _go to Nagasaki_. He would _not_
wait _four_ days for an answer from Yedo, but only _three_. The survey
boats _would_ survey the waters of the bay.
“His Excellency” (!) the buniō was shown the varnish and key hole of the
magnificent caskets containing the letters from the great ruler of the
United States. Eve did not eye the forbidden fruit of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil with more consuming curiosity, than did that
son of an inquisitive race ogle the glittering mysterious box. It was
not for him to know the contents. He was moved to offer food and water.
With torturing politeness, the “hairy faces” declined. They had enough
of everything. The ugly barbarians even demanded that the same term of
respect should be applied to their President as that given to the great
and mighty figure-head at Yedo. This came near being a genuine comedy of
Much Ado about Nothing, since one of the Tycoon’s titles expressed, in
English print was “O.”
In spite of the rising gorge and other choking sensations, the
republican president was dubbed Dairi. The buniō of Uraga was told that
further discussion was unnecessary, until an answer was received. No
number of silent volleys of “_naru hodo_” (indeed) “_tai-hen_” (hey yo)
or “_dekinai_” (cannot) could possibly soothe the internal storm in the
breast of the snubbed buniō. He gathered himself up, and with bows
profound enough to make a right angle of legs and body, and much sucking
in of the breath _ad profundis_, said his “_sayonara_” (farewell) and
went ashore.
The third day dawned, again to usher in fresh anomaly. The Americans
would transact no business on this day! Why? It was the Sabbath, for
rest and worship, honored by the “Admiral” from childhood in public as
well as private life. “Dōntaku” (Sunday,) the interpreter told the
buniō. With the aid of glasses from the bluffs on shore, they saw the
_Mississippi’s_ capstan wreathed with a flag, a big book laid thereon,
and smaller books handed round. One, in a gown, lowered his head; all
listening did likewise. Then all sang, the band lending its instrumental
aid to swell the volume of sound. The strains floated shoreward and were
heard. The music was “Old Hundred.” The hymn was “Before Jehovah’s awful
throne, Ye nations bow with sacred joy.” The open book on the capstan
was the Bible. In the afternoon, a visiting party of minor dignitaries
was denied admittance to the decks of the vessels; nor was this a mere
freak of Perry’s, but according to a habit and principle.
This was the American rest-day, and Almighty God was here worshiped in
sight of His most glorious works. The Commodore was but carrying out a
habit formed at his mother’s knee, and never slighted at home or abroad.
To read daily the Bible, receiving it as the word of God, and to honor
Him by prayer and praise was the chief part of the “provision sufficient
to sustain the mind” so often recommended by him to officers and men.
“This was the only notable demonstration which he made before landing.”
“Remarkable was this Sabbath morning salutation, in which an American
fleet, with such music as those hillsides never re-echoed before,
chanted the glories of Jehovah before the gates of a heathen nation. It
was a strange summons to the Japanese.” Its echoes are now heard in a
thousand glens and in the cities of the Mikado’s empire. The waters of
Yedo Bay have since become a baptismal flood. Where cannon was cast to
resist Perry now stands the Imperial Female Normal College. On the
treaty grounds rises the spire of a Christian church.
Meanwhile, the erection of earth-works along the strand and on the
bluffs progressed. The farm laborers, the fishermen, palanquin-bearers,
pack-horse leaders, women and children were impressed into the work.
With hoe and spade, and baskets of rope matting slung from a pole borne
on the shoulders of two men, or each with divided load depending
scale-wise from one shoulder, receiving an iron cash at each passing of
the paymaster, they toiled day and night. Rude parapets of earth knit
together with grass were made and pierced with embrasures. These were
twice too wide for unwieldly, long, and ponderously heavy brass cannon
able to throw a three or six pound ball. The troops were clad in mail of
silk, iron and paper, a kind of war corset, for which rifle balls have
little respect. Their weapons were match-locks and spears. Their
evolutions were those of Taikō’s time, both on drill and parade.
Curtained camps sprung up, around which stretched impressive walls of
cotton cloth etched by the dyer’s mordant with colossal crests. These
were not to represent “sham forts, of striped canvas,” and thus to
frighten the invaders, as the latter supposed; but, according to
immemorial custom, to denote military business, and to display either
the insignia of the great Shō-gun or the particular clan to which a
certain garrison or detachment belonged. The political system headed by
the Tycoon, had to the Japanese mind nothing amusing in its name of
Bakafu or Curtain Government, though to the foreigner, suggestive of
Mrs. Caudle. It had, however, a certain hostile savor. It was a mild
protest against the camp over-awing the throne. It implied criticism of
the Shō-gun, and reverence to the Mikado.
The names and titles which now desolated the air and suffered phonetic
wreck in collision with the vocal organs to which they were so strange,
furnish not only an interesting linguistic study, but were a mirror of
native history. The uncouth forms which they took upon the lips of the
latest visiting foreigners are hardly worse in the scholar’s eyes, than
the deviations which the Japanese themselves made from the Aino
aboriginal or imported Chinese forms. In its vocabulary the Japanese is
a very mixed language, and the majority of its so called elegant terms
of speech is but mispronounced Chinese. To the Americans, the name of
one of the interpreters seemed “compounded of two sneezes and a cough,”
though when analyzed into its component elements, it reflects the
changes in Japanese history as surely as fossils in the rocks reveal the
characteristics of bygone geological ages. In the old days of the
Mikado’s supremacy, in fact as well as in law, when he led his troops in
war, instead of being exiled in a palace; that is, before the thirteenth
century, both military and civil titles had a meaning. Names had a
reality behind them, and were symbols of a fact. A man with _kami_
(lord) after his name was an actual governor of a province; one with
_mon_ terminating his patronymic was a member of the imperial guard, a
soldier or sentinel at the _Sayé mon_ (left gate) or _Uyé mon_ (right
gate) of the palace; a _Hei_ was a real soldier with a sword or arrow,
spear or armor. A _suké_ or a _jō a marō_ or a _himé_, a _kamon_ or a
_tono_ was a real deputy or superior, a prince or princess, a palace
functionary or a palace occupant of imperial blood. All this was changed
when, in the twelfth century, the authority was divided into civil and
military, and two capitals and centers of government, typified by the
Throne and the Camp, sprang up. The Mikado kept his seat, the prestige
of antiquity and divinity, and the fountain of authority at Kiōto, while
the Shō-gun or usurping general held the purse and the sword at
Kamakura. Gradually the Shō-gun (army-commander, general) usurped more
and more power, claiming it as necessary, and invariably obtaining new
leases of power until little was left to the Mikado but the shadow of
authority. The title of Tai-kun (“Tycoon”) meaning Great Prince, and the
equivalent of a former title of the Mikado was assumed. Next the
military rulers at Kamakura, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century
and in Yedo from the seventeenth century, controlled the appointments of
their nominees to office, and even compelled the Emperor to make certain
of them hereditary in elect families. The multitude of imperial titles,
once carrying with their conferment actual duties and incomes, and
theoretically functional in Kiōto became, as reality decayed, in the
higher grades empty honorifics of the Tycoon’s minions, and in the lower
were degraded to ordinary personal names of the agricultural gentry or
even common people. What was once an actual official title sunk to be a
mere final syllable in a name.
The writer, when a resident in the Mikado’s empire, was accustomed to
address persons with most lofty, grandiloquent, and high flown names,
titles and decorative patronymics, in which the glories of decayed
imperialism and medieval history were reflected. His cook was an
Imperial Guardsman of the Left, his stable boy was a Regent of the
University, while not a few servants, mechanics, field hands and manure
carriers, were Lords of the Chamber, Promoters of Learning,
Superintendents of the Palace Gardens, or various high functionaries
with salary and office. Just as the decayed mythology and far off
history of the classic nations furnished names for the slaves in
Carolina cotton fields, in the days when Lempriêre was consulted for the
christening of newly born negro babies, so, the names borne by thousands
of Japanese to-day afford to the foreign analyst of words and to the
native scholar both amusement and reflection. To the Americans on
Perry’s fleet they furnished endless jest as phonetic and linguistic
curiosities.
-----
[26] A Japanese poet puts this stanza in the mouth of Perry; “Little did
I dream that I should here, after crossing the salty path, gaze upon the
snow-capped Fuji of this land.”
[27] “M—— Y—— is at Shimoda, and has not forgotten the art of
lying.” Townsend Harris to Perry, October 27, 1857.