Japan and her people ... With numerous illustrations

Front matter

Wn^uTO rlifc^ "fix'-* r" ' « >-%y.|gx»-iiJ^iJ,.t.-.'-.>.*^,.'-t>.. ) » ■Ok . k. , JBX A-sA*.' • -.' J^B— I^V '* jAn MttnlBHI • »»•<, Klll3HH»jfc&^ ■* *. 7 >"r ■' ■ ■ ■ k/Y, - i^BSP^SK1 ' *°c»' **•:• s : JAPAN AND HER PEOPLE. 1MPEETAL TALACE AT JEDDO. JAPAN AND HER PEOPLE. BY ANDREW STEINMETZ, Esq. OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BABRISTER-AT-LAW. S&itii Illustrations. LONDON: ROUTLEDGE, WARNES, AND ROUTLEDGE, FARRINGDOiNT STEEET. NEW YOKE : 18, BEEKMAN STEEET. 1859. [The Author reserves the right of Translation. J LONDON : SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTEB8, CHANDOS STBEET, POTENT GARDEN. TO THE EIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF MALMESBURY, &c. &c. &c. My Lokd, In your Lordship's obliging reply to my note, you were pleased to suggest that my book on "Japan and her People" should be dedicated to Lord Clarendon, "as the merit of the recent treaty with Japan is due to the late and not to the present Government."

But as the ancient Romans dated their memorable events from their consulates, so, in like manner, must we refer this remarkable success to the present Government as a date to be remembered by Eugland, and to your Lordship as directing her foreign relations. To your Lordship, therefore, I inscribe my book on " Japan and her People." All will surely appreciate the noble generosity of your disclaimer and suggestion, and none more than Your Lordship's Most obedient and very humble servant, ANDREW STEINMETZ.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Part I. Chap

I. — GEOGRAPHY; CLIMATE; VEGETABLE, ANIMAL, AND MINERAL PRODUCTIONS ; THE SCENERY OF JAPAN 12 II. — EARLY HISTORY; GOVERNMENT; CLASSES OF THE POPULATION ; POLICE, ARMY, LAWS, ETC. . . 62 III. — PALACES, TEMPLES, CASTLES, TOWNS, HOUSES, , GARDENS, VEHICLES, ETC 109 IV. — A JOURNEY BY LAND AND WATER FBOM NAGASAKI TO JEDDO. INCIDENTS OF TEAVEL IN JAPAN 189 V. — RELIGION ; RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS 225 VI. — SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 250 VII. — LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, SCIENCE, MUSIC, PAINT- ING, SCULPTURE, MANUFACTURES 296

Part II

I. — RACE AND HISTORICAL NOTICES 344 II. — CHRISTIANITY ; THE PORTUGUESE AND THE DUTCH IN JAPAN 360 III. — THE ENGLISH, THE RUSSIANS, THE AMERICANS IN JAPAN; THE RECENT BRITISH VISIT AND TREATY 401 GRAMMARS AND DICTIONARIES 441 SELECT JAPANESE VOCABULABY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE imperial palace at jeddo, to face Title. JUGGLERS AND TUMBLERS 1 PART OF JEDDO ......... 11 THE FUDSI OR FOUSI TAMMA ...... 23 THE CRATER OF FOUSI TAMMA 24 JAPANESE GARDEN (should be on p. 129) .... 31 OLD CAMPHOR-TREE . ...... 36 A JAPANESE FISHING FAMILY 43 JAPANESE FISHERMEN ........ 51 THE KIRISIMA TAMMA 59 THE PORT OF SIMONESEKE ....... 60 FIRANDO . . • 61 A VASSAL PRINCE 66 THE MIKADO, OR SPIRITUAL EMPEROR AND HIS WIVES . . 75 BUDDHIST TEMPLE .....,.- 113 COUNTRY HOUSE 129 AN EQUESTRIAN PARTY . 1 36 JAPANESE MERCHANT 139 ORNAMENTAL CANDLESTICKS 173 THE TEA PARTY 180 THE SIOGOCN OR TEMPORAL EMPEROR AND HIS WIFE . . 222 FAMILT WORSHIP .......■• 225 DIVINITIES 248 LADT PAINTING 250 DOMESTIC LIFE IN JAPAN 268 MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 278 JAPANESE WRESTLERS 284 ENGRAVING BLOCKS FOR PRINTING 296 JAPANESE LADT'S BOUDOIR 314 ORNAMENTAL VASES 332 FLOWER-BASKETS AND VASES . 337 JAPANESE INSTRUMENTS OF WAI: 341 JAPANESE MALE AND FEMALE 346 NAGASAKI AND DESIMA "429 THE image OF quanwon, on the cover . . . See p. JUGGLERS AND TUMBLERS.

INTRODUCTION.

. At the present epoch events do not creep — do not even walk or run : they devour space, like light ; or, like the electric flash, they astound us by their suddenness. Japan, the pink of the Pacific, has opened once more to the ravished and lusty eyes of the Western World. B HOW JAPAN WAS OPENED. Four and twenty years ago in the same month, a poli tician exclaimed, — " We think it much more likely that the sole remaining link between Europe and Japan — the Dutch connection — should be severed by violence or obliterated by disuse, than that either force or persuasion should devise a new one between this country, or any of its dependencies, and that empire ; that New Holland, Borneo, or Central Africa have a fairer chance of being diplomatized or dragooned into hospitality or submission towards us, within any period to which the speculation of mortal man can reasonably extend." * After more than two centuries of aversion, suspicion, and contempt — secure in her proud, and perhaps justifiable self-sufficiency- — she has at last — like Portia in the play — risked " the lottery of her destiny " — and, indeed, " without voluntary choosing."

For, if she has consented to entertain the pretensions of her imperial, royal, and republican suitors, her past history — the character and characteristics of her people and their time-honoured institutions, seem to warrant us in concluding that her enlightened rulers and statesmen have yielded with a sigh or a groan — meditating, perhaps, the proverb which inculcates that " hanging and wiving goes by des tiny." The " moral force" by which this " political revolution" has been effected is frankly declared and honestly ad mitted : — " After the complicated and harassing work in which the allies have been engaged in China for the last year, it is matter of congratulation to them that a political revolution as startling to the Japanese themselves as it was unexpected by the world at large, should have been wrought by the application of moral force alone in this singular and hitherto jealously exclusive empire.

Various causes have conspired to produce this result. The con tact into which they were constantly brought with both English and Russians during the late war, the expedition of Commodore Perry, and the establishment at Simoda * Quarterly Review, November, 1834. " MORAL FORCE." 3 of an American Consul, together with the indefatigable exertions of Mr. Harris, the gentleman who filled this post, doubtless operated largely in preparing the Japanese mind for the change which their own sound common sense and quickness of observation showed them was inevitable. It was not, however, until the intelligence reached Jeddo of the treaty of Tien-sin, accompanied by an exaggerated report of the naval force with which the allies intended visiting Japan, and the uncompromising attitude they would assume when they arrived there, that the plenipotentiaries appointed to treat with Mr. Harris put their signature to the treaty, which had already been for some months before them.

The arrival almost immediately afterwards of both the Russians and ourselves confirmed to some extent the rumours they had heard, and plenipotentiaries were without delay appointed to treat upon the same base a3 that which had already been adopted in the American treaty. It is not to be supposed, however, that the Japanese Government succumbed feebly to the pressure from without, as though resigning itself in despair to an inevitable destiny. So far from such being the case, Lord Elgin, upon his arrival at Jeddo, found the late Liberal Government, with whom the Americans had treated, had been turned out of office only two or three days previously. The Conservative, or aristocratic party, had replaced the enlightened Prime Minister with whom we expected to treat, by men of anti-progressive ten dencies, and it was evident that, so far from yielding to further pressure, there was a strong disposition manifested on the part of the hereditary nobility to break rather than bend further.

This was the public opinion which the six plenipotentiaries appointed to treat with Lord Elgin, though of sufficiently enlightened views themselves, were compelled constantly to consider in their discussion of those points in which any advance was desired upon the treaties already signed. So determined, indeed, was the resistance made to any further innovation, and so keen their investigation of our demands, that the work of ne gotiation, though it proceeded rapidly, was not unattended b2 EUROPEAN LUST OF GOLD. with difficulty, and afforded no prospect of a more liberal tendency than that already manifested."* Their country, we are told, leaves them nothing to desire in the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life ; their industry makes the most of the gifts of nature — according to their way of thinking.

Abject indigence is unknown ; beggars — in our deplorable sense of the word — are scarcely, if ever, seen ; they have no human caravans, human menageries, or unions. The testimony of all who have frequented their islands attest their happy lot — from the earliest times of European visitation ; all agree that there are few nations who can more easily do without others than the people of Japan ; and, what is better still, they perfectly know and value this magnificent independence. Has a nation any right thus to isolate herself under any circumstances whatever 1 Political ambition says No. Commercial interest iterates the negative. The insatiable curiosity of our Western races — over-endowed with the spirit of intellectual conquest, ratifies the de cision. We are infinitely behind, or in advance of, the age — this epoch of commercial activity, which sees in the accu mulation of material wealth the accomplishment of all that is good and great — even " the Law and the Prophets" — if we cannot see that both the sympathies and antipa thies of nature and of social institutions must bend to the fiat of expediency, like the major force which sometimes determines alliances of interest — marriages of convenience.

To Utopian dreams we refer such philosophical hesitation, and we frankly admit that a common interest — conceived and pronounced to be such — must override all national prejudices, all diplomatic routine — even the 'everlasting antagonism of races. We have read a rude lesson to the Chinese. We have proved and are proving to the Hin doos that the star of our destiny is still in the ascendant. What wonder, then, that Japanese exclusiveness should * The Times, November 2nd, 1858. JAPAN'S REDUNDANT POPULATION. 5 wisely yield to the spirit of Anglo-Saxon energy and ex pansion — both indeed stubborn and implacable national " phenomena" — but nevertheless, by the very nature of things, capable of stretching, when absolutely necessary, to the force of circumstances — or, for a " consideration." In the present instance the fact is accomplished.

The mountain has commenced her labour. She may be preg nant with Behemoth or Leviathan — most assuredly not with a mouse. On the other hand, we are informed that Japan is a country of redundant population. It seems to have been so in the earliest times of European contact. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century her merchants, her colonies, her pirates, were scattered on the coasts of Ton quin, Cambodia, Siam, Formosa, the Philippines, the Islands of Sunda and the Moluccas. Multitudes of the inhabitants served as volunteers in the armies of these countries, and proved their bravery. They fought for the English and the Dutch in their Indian wars. When the Russians discovered Kamtschatka in 1696, they found that the children of ancient Niphon had long before made a settlement in that inhospitable region.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century Japanese emigration embraced sixteen foreign countries; when, in 1639, the inexorable decree was issued which inflicted the penalty of death on all who should leave and return to their native country, whilst it as stringently shut out the foreigner. The vessels which the natives had built on the European model were burnt ; the old build was peremptorily re stored by law, to insure the chance of shipwreck, if any attempt were made to sail beyond the coasts of that stormy ocean. Since then peace within and without, general prosperity, the action of a salubrious climate, and other natural causes, have conspired to increase the already teeming population of Japan. With a population of forty millions of wealthy and civilized inhabitants, it is averred that Japan is sinking under a human plethora.

Her villages touch each other, and form streets many leagues in extent. Her towns are crowded : — Jeddo is COMPARATIVE POPULATION STATISTICS. more than one half larger than Paris, larger than Peking, and is only less populous than London by about three or four hundred thousand souls. Infanticide, that horrible resource of the Chinese and other nations, is utterly repugnant to Japanese humanity. At least so affirms a recent writer on Japan.* Ac cording to the old Jesuits, however, the Japanese not unfrequently committed child-murder, and also had recourse to drugs to procure abortion, t Perhaps, how ever, these cruel crimes were not more salient characte ristics in the Japanese than in European nations, amongst whom the severest penal enactments fail to repress these felonies. Indeed the expression used by the Jesuit might be applied by a Japanese traveller to all the western nations respecting these foul practices, — especially the second.

Now, if we consider this population of forty millions spread over Japan's twelve thousand five hundred and seventy square leagues of territorial extent, we find the colossal figure of three thousand one hundred and eighty two inhabitants to the square league ! Some idea may be formed of this fact when we remember that France — wiiich is not a desert — has only twelve hundred and thirty-nine inhabitants to the square league, and the United Kingdom but a few more. There are in Germany only 127 ; in Italy 172 ; in Holland 224 ; in Spain 63 ; in Poland 52 ; in Turkey 36 ; in Sweden only 14 inhabitants to the square mile, — in France 154, in the United Kingdom, 152, — whilst in Japan there are 354 ! With so many mouths to feed we find no difficulty in believing that the Japanese are a highly industrious people, who turn ■everything to account, and do not waste the gifts of the gods.

We are told that in 1775 Dr. Thunberg, physician to the Dutch factory, went botaniz ing in the environs of Desima, but could not find a single plant for his herbal, — agriculture had displaced * Fraissinet, Le Japon Contemporain. ' + Mass. Rer. Indie. 1. xii. Prægnantes fæmina? partum haud rarb medicamentis abigunt, &c. THE JAPANESE A SUPERIOE RACE.. 7 every plant that is useless for food or raiment, and hus banded every inch of soil for the support of life. Assuredly these facts prove the necessity for removing all restrictions from emigration in Japan. Her intelligent, hard-working population would find an outlet in Australia and New Zealand. California and the other States of the American Union would welcome a race with which they need not be ashamed to mix and renovate their blood. And such of those eminently distinguished islanders who are well provided with the circulating medium, would be received throughout Europe with open arms, to grace with their elegance the courts of kings, to lionize in the saloons of aristocratic society, to vie with our fops without disparagement in the trifles which are the end of their existence upon earth — that is, in our theatres and other places of fashionable resort.* For, in the essential characteristics of the superior human races, the Japanese are at least the equals of our interminably mixed European and Trans- Atlantic popu lations ; and by the general testimony of all who visited their shores, they claim the highest consideration.

" Their motions and gestures," wrote Bayard Taylor only three years ago, " were characterized by an unstudied grace, and it was the unanimous opinion of all our officers that they were as perfect gentlemen as could be found in any part of the world."t St. Francis Xavier, the Alexander of the Christian missions, said of them more than two hundred years ago, ' I know not when to have done when I speak of the Japanese. They are truly the delight of my heart." Our old mariner, William Adams, lived long amongst them, and enjoyed their kindness and muni ficence. Father Froes, after a residence of some years, said, — " They are as gifted a nation as any in Europe." A Spanish grandee, in 1608, did not hesitate to exclaim, that "if he could have prevailed upon himself to renounce * Fraissinet, Le Jap.

Contemp. ■j- " In nniversum acuta, sagax, ac bene a natura inforroata gens est," says Maffeius, ubi supra, ".a sharp, intelligent, and naturally well-endowed people." WHY THEY EXCLUDED EUROPEANS. his God and his king, he should have preferred that country to his own." Lastly, the Times of November 2nd says : — " Suffice it to be recorded as our general impression that, in its climate, its fertility, and its picturesque beauty, Japan is not equalled by any country on the face of the globe ; while, as if to harmonize with its surpassing natural endowments, it is peopled by a race whose qualities are of the most amiable and winning description, and whose material prosperity has been so equalized as to insure happiness and contentment to all classes. We never saw two Japanese quarrel, and beggars have yet to be introduced with other luxuries of Western civilization.

It is not to be wondered at that a people rendered independent by the resources of their country and the frugality and absence of luxury, which so strikingly characterize them, should not have experienced any great desire to establish an intercourse with other nations, which, in all probability, would carry in its train greater evils than could be compensated for by its incidental advantages. Their exclusiveness has arisen, not, as in China, from an assumption of superiority over the rest of the world, but from a conviction that the well-being and happiness of the community would not be increased by the introduction of foreign tastes and luxuries ; and that very propensity to imitate and adopt the appliances of civilization, so foreign to the Chinaman, is so strongly developed in Japan that their rulers foresee that the changes now being effected will, in all probability, some day or other revolutionize the country, — an apprehension which need cause tjie Emperor but little alarm ; no one can doubt who has visited the two countries that the Chinaman will still be navigating the canals of his country in the crazy old junks of his ancestors, when the Japanese is skimming along his rivers in high-pressure steamers, or flying across the country behind a locomotive."

They have, consequently, not degenerated. Shall we ascribe their continued virtues to their rigid exclusion of THE HAND OF PROVIDENCE. 9 European "civilization V Alas ! how much is comprised in this word. But let us contemplate the hand of Providence in this entrance of the Western wedge into the granitic block of Oriental stagnation. All the circumstances seem to remind us of those national necessities which, in all times, have repeatedly changed and renewed the face of the earth. The thirst for gold and the banner of Re ligion ; diplomatic jugglery and scientific curiosity; the selfish ambition of kings, and the seductive, nay, rather the imperative hunger for food, are causes whose effects we can but dimly foresee, even with the everlasting light of experience which shines on the immense track behind us ; — advancing as we are in our restless career, with " On ! still onwards !" the motto of our dominant race — God only knows whither ! "'Tis destiny unshunnable — like death." or,— "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will." PART OF JEDDO.

PART I. CHAPTER

I. GEOGRAPHY ; CLIMATE ; VEGETABLE, ANIMAL, AND MINERAL P;ROL DUCTIONS ; THE SCENERY OF JAPAN. Japan is a cluster of islands left by the ocean, or upheaved from the deep by volcanic action, opposite the north-eastern coast of Asia. Three thousand eight hundred and fifty islands, islets, or rocks, compose the empire : they lie like beavers basking in the sun — as Venice in her Adriatic — as the JAPAN AND ENGLAND COMPARED. British Isles over against the continent of Europe. Here the comparison ends, but it may suggest ulterior medi tation in the mind of the reflective reader. London has been shown to be the very pole geographical round about which the inhabited world rotates — significantly enough of her destiny amongst the nations : Japan has remained the very paradise of fixed and unchangeable ideas — stagnant in her material wealth — stagnant in her insti tutions — content to hold her own — content with internal peace and prosperity.

The difference is a matter of race. The race or races which have encompassed the earth from these islands so insignificant on the map of Europe, would have achieved the same destiny had their lot been cast in Japan, or perhaps even in Kamtschatka. The writer in the Quarterly, before quoted, asks : — " Where, however, in the well-ordered empire of Japan Proper can we find the counterpart of Ireland ? Where is the Japanese Connaught 1 Which of her sixty-eight peaceful provinces represents Tipperary ? When has a Buddhist been insulted by a follower of Sintoo ? What voice has been raised to repeal the union between-Nan kaydoo and Saykadoo, or to pronounce that Tookaydoo shall no longer contain the centre of government of both 1" The most important islands of Japan are Niphon, Kiousiou, and Sikok or Sitkokf.

It would but uselessly fatigue the eye of the reader to enlarge on the geo graphical catalogue of island-names, which will be found barbarously represented in the map, abounding in sonorous vowels, but nevertheless recalcitrant to our vocal organs. Suffice it to state that the empire of " the Sons of the Sun" extends over a vast expanse of land and sea, of various climates and exhaustless fertility. Together with its dependencies, it covers twenty-five degrees of latitude, and twenty-seven of longitude, or about 390,625 square leagues of the earth's surface, including land and water. Malte-Brun makes the territorial superficies of the empire of Japan to be 16,000 square leagues, but calculations founded on the maps of Robert, Broughton, Arrowsmith, JEDDO. 13 and Kriisenstern, reduce it to 12,570.

During the last fifty years the natives themselves have attained sufficient familiarity with science to perfect their charts and calculations. They have produced a graphic representation of all the islands, rocks, and visible shoals of their archi pelago ; have sketched the relative extent of the various islands, and have even succeeded in tracing the effects of the great geological revolutions of which that immense labyrinth has been the theatre. The Japanese themselves call their country Niphon, or Nipon, a name compounded of Nitsi, " Sun," and Blum, " origin" or " rising," equivalent to " eastern country ;" and the term Japan is but a corruption of the Chinese Zipangu, of the same meaning. Id the island of Niphon is situated the capital of the empire — Jeddo or Yeddo — which occupies more ground than London, with a population numbering between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000.

Jeddo is said to be, without exception, one of the finest cities in the world : streets broad and good, and the Castle, which includes nearly the whole centre of the town, built on a slight eminence, capable of containing 40,000 men. There are three walls or enclosures round this quarter. Within the inner wall the Emperor and his heir-apparent reside. The houses of the princes and nobles are palaces, and we may imagine the size when some contain 10,000 followers. They are built in regular order, forming wide streets some forty yards broad, kept in perfect order ; an immense courtyard, with trees and gardens, forms the centre of each enclosure, in the midst of which is the house of the owner ; the houses containing the followers, servants, stables, <fec, form this large enclosure. They are built of one uniform shape.

The gateways leading to the courtyard are ex ceedingly handsome, of massive woodwork, ornamented with lacquer and other devices. From the road that leads by the moat to the second wall is one of the finest views ever seen — on one side the Gulf of Jeddo, with the high hills rising beyond, while on the other is a portion of the great city of Jeddo, with its trees and gardens, picturesque JEDDO, temples, and densely crowded streets, extending as far as the eye can reach towards the interior ; then there is a view of the trees and green fields in the distance, far away beyond a thickly built suburb; but the most striking view of all is that close by, the well kept green banks of the second defence rising some seventy feet from the broad moat below, with grand old cedars, over a hundred years of age, growing from its sides.

The fine timber, the lay of the ground, the water lilies in the moat, the grandeur, good order, and completeness of everything, equal, and in some ways far surpass, anything ever seen in Europe, or any part of the world.* Every cottage, temple, and tea-house is surrounded by gardens laid out with exquisite taste, and the most ela borate neatness is skilfully blended with grandeur of design. The natural features of the country are admirably taken advantage of, and a long ride is certain to be rewarded by a romantic scene, where a tea-house is pic turesquely perched over a water-fall, or a temple rears its carved gables amid groves of ancient cedars. The tea house is a national characteristic of Japan. The traveller, wearied with the noonday heat, need never be at a loss to find rest and refreshment ; stretched upon the softest and cleanest of matting, imbibing the most delicately-flavoured tea, inhaling through a short pipe the fragrant tobacco of Japan, he resigns himself to the ministrations of a bevy of fair damsels, who glide rapidly and noiselessly about, the most zealous and skilful of attendants, f The island of Kiousiou, or Kewsew, is extremely well cultivated and generally fertile, with the exception of its eastern coast, bordering on the Bungo Channel, where it is mountainous, barren, and comparatively thinly inha bited.

The chief town is Nagasaki. Nagasaki, sometimes pronounced Nangasaki,+ the only * The Times, November 3rd, 1858. t The Times, November 2nd, 1858. X The proper name is certainly Nagasaki. We find it written and printed in a perplexing variety of ways. The old Spanish and Portuguese writers frequently turn it into Langasaki, or Lampsaki AFFECTING INCIDENT. place open to foreigners, lies on a peninsula formed by the deep Bay of Omura, in 32° 45' N. lat. and 129° 15' E. long. Its harbour is spacious and deep, extending in length about four miles, with an average width of more than a mile. At its entrance is the small island of Papen berg, where the water is twenty-two fathoms deep, but it grows shallower as it proceeds inward, so that, opposite to the town, it has only a depth of four fathoms ; so far it runs north-east, it then turns north, and has less depth.

The town is built on its eastern shores, in a narrow valley which runs eastward. It is three-quarters of a mile long, and almost as broad, and inclosed by steep, though not lofty, hills. There are some good buildings in the town ; as the palaces of the two governors, and those of some princes and noblemen of the empire, but especially the temples, which were sixty-two in number, within and without the town, in the time of Kampfer (1692). The population may amount to 40,000 or 50,000 souls. It is one of the five imperial towns of the empire.* Nagasaki is remarkable for the apostasy of the Jesuit Ferreyra, an oid missionary, the Provincial of the Order, and Administrator of the Bishopric during the terrible persecution of the Christians of Japan, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Dreadful times were those !

They suspended the poor Jesuit over a pit, where, after four hours' torture, his Christian fortitude failed him, and he gave the fatal sign of apostasy. They suffered him to live, but compelled him to assume the Japanese costume and a Japanese name, and to marry a Japanese woman, the widow of a Chinese goldsmith, who had been executed for some offence ; and, finally, they made him a Japanese Inquisitor, making him preside over one of the tribunals which tried and consigned the Christians to martyrdom ! Here was a specimen of Japanese policy in its striking refinement, calculation, and design. Your western state-craft could never think of such a plan for damaging the cause of a * Penny Cyclopædia, "Japan." "A FINE STORY." proscribed religion. To show the convert his own apostle, sacrificing to idols, and dipping his hand in the blood of those whom he had himself made guilty' of the state crime !

We are assured on the best authority, that Ferreyra performed his function as Japanese Inquisitor. Five Jesuits were brought before him. " Who are you 1" he asked. " Priests of the Company of Jesus." " Abjure your faith," said the renegade, " and you shall be rich and raised to honour." The Jesuits preferred martyrdom, and died accordingly.* The Jesuits believed that Ferreyra's marriage was merely a sham ou his part — never consummated — and they were probably right. They also assert that Ferreyra subsequently repented, confessed himself a Christian, and won the crown of martyrdom in the very fosse where he yielded in human frailty. Mr. Hildrethf calls this last fact "a fine story," for which " there seems to have been no foundation, except the wishes and hopes of those who circulated it."

Cer tainly, it may be an invention of the Jesuits ; but if it be not a fact, it deserves to be believed under the circum stances — the poor man's second state having probably turned out infinitely worse than the death which most of us would shrink from and decline. A small artificial island in the harbour of Nagasaki, called Desima, is remarkable as the crib to which the Dutch have been rigorously confined for two hundred years in their trade with Japan. It was built in 1635 for the seclusion of the Portuguese sailors and merchants, who were there confined as a security against the intro duction of missionaries. Desima is built in the form of a fan, surrounded by a wall of basalt, surmounted by iron spikes, and communi cates with the city of Nagasaki by a bridge, which is always strictly guarded by the ever-watchful Japanese * Cretineau-Joly, Hist, de la Comp, de Je~sus, iii. 203. t Japan, p. 191.