first consular chaplain of that settlement. They had been both widowed
about the same time. They were about the same age too, and the union,
based on a deep-rooted and matured affection, proved an exceptionally
happy one during thirty-five years, till death divided them. Lady Alcock
accompanied her husband on his return to Japan, where they arrived in
March 1864.

During the two years of the Minister's absence affairs in Japan had, as we
have seen, been advancing rapidly--whether towards a reasonable solution
or to a catastrophe was as yet doubtful. The agitation against the foreign
treaties had been gathering force and consistency; the Tycoon's position
was becoming more and more precarious, his existence being pledged to
the annulment of the hated treaties. Encouraged by the success which
had attended his mission to Europe in 1862, he despatched another in
the beginning of 1864, to represent to the European Governments that the
public feeling in Japan was growing worse every day, that the Tycoon would
not be able to protect foreigners in Yokohama, and that, in short, the
port must be closed and foreign trade confined to Hakodate and Nagasaki.
The mission, already on its way, was met by Sir Rutherford Alcock in
Shanghai, where he had an opportunity of personal conference with the
envoys. The situation was thus summarised by the Minister in a despatch
to the Foreign Office, 31st March 1864:--

    It is just two years since I left Japan in order to be present in
    London when the first mission sent by the Tycoon to the treaty
    Powers in Europe should arrive. Returning to my post a month
    ago, I met a second mission on its way to the same Courts. These
    two embassies seem to me to form very significant events in the
    history of Japan and its relations with foreign States.... I
    consider the signing of the protocol of June 1862 (afterwards
    adopted with unimportant modifications by all the other Powers),
    freely granting without abatement all that the Tycoon asked, was
    the culminating act and fitting end of the conciliatory policy
    so consistently adhered to from the beginning. It was impossible
    to concede more without abandoning the treaties altogether.
    Thenceforth it only remained to gather the promised fruit of
    greater security to life, and freer intercourse within narrowed
    limits, which, for the moment at least, appeared unattainable in
    the wider range of five ports and two cities.... The avowed object
    of the second mission is to declare that all the hopes held out
    by the Tycoon of the probable results of the first concessions
    have been illusory.... The only fruit has been indiscriminate
    aggression, increased insecurity, calling for measures of coercion
    on the part of all the treaty Powers; finally, a decree for the
    expulsion of foreigners, with a mission from the Tycoon to declare
    his utter inability to maintain the treaties, and to suggest a
    surrender of all the rights and privileges they were framed to
    secure in perpetuity.

The mission was not successful in its main purpose, and soon returned to
Japan to report progress.

VI. THE CRISIS.

    Foreign rights must be sustained by force or definitively
    abandoned--Organises a retaliatory demonstration against
    Nagato--Forts at Shimonoséki attacked by international squadron,
    after delays--Satisfactory results--Nagato claims authority of
    Mikado for his attacks on foreign ships--His defeat gave courage
    to Tycoon--Anti-foreign measures promptly withdrawn--The treaties
    of 1858 ratified by Mikado--Sir R. Alcock's recall--Lord Russell's
    _amende_.

The Tycoon's Government had actually succeeded by patient persistence in
evil-doing in making Yedo "too hot to hold" the foreign representatives,
who had in consequence gradually accustomed themselves to residence in the
freer air of Yokohama. "Incendiarism and assassination had done their work
and effected the end for which they were employed," writes Sir Rutherford
Alcock, who goes on to remark that "the recovery of this lapsed right"
(of residence in the capital) "will have now to follow, not precede, other
measures." So far had the foreign nations retreated before the forces of
reaction, forces which necessarily acquired cohesion and momentum with
each retrograde step of the opposing Powers. The country, meaning thereby
the official hierarchy, was now at least, if not before, practically
unanimous. Mikado, Daimios, the Tycoon himself, however they may have been
embittered by their mutual jealousies, were now united, and passionately
united, in the determination to expel the foreigners, so far as it might
be possible,--on which latter point, however, there was room for great
differences of opinion. The Prince of Nagato might be a rebel against
the Tycoon's or the Mikado's authority, both of whom had disavowed his
proceedings, but his determination to block the passage of the Inland Sea
and suppress all trade but his own was an important part of the national
policy of expulsion. It appeared that the only friend of foreigners at
that time was the Prince of Satsuma, who had become a changed man since
his stronghold was bombarded, and he began to see that the restoration of
imperial rule and deposition of the Tycoon might be accomplished by the
assistance of foreigners. That event was undoubtedly accelerated by the
policy of the first two British ministers in Japan.

The new position was reviewed under a sense of deep personal
responsibility by Sir Rutherford Alcock in several despatches during
the spring of 1864, and, as we have seen, the conclusion he arrived at
was that the utmost limit of concession to Japanese exigencies had been
reached: everything had been given up to them that could be given up
without abandoning the treaties entirely and leaving the country. There
was not even room left for negotiation. "No attempt at a compromise of
such conflicting pretensions could possibly succeed." "Compromise or
concession is plainly impossible in the nature of things." Moreover, Earl
Russell had enjoined on both the _chargé d'affaires_ and the Minister to
stand firmly for their rights. His latest instruction to Sir Rutherford
Alcock on his departure from England was, "You will in any case require
from the Tycoon and the Daimios the execution of the treaty." In the face
of a determination to annul the treaties this necessitated some vigorous
action.

The most obvious and most straightforward course indicated was to deal
a decisive blow against the Prince of Nagato, who for nearly twelve
months had set the whole of the Western Powers at defiance. He was more
accessible from the salt water than even Satsuma; he was repudiated,
hypocritically or not, by his sovereign; and a punitive expedition to
Shimonoséki would not involve detriment to trade or inflict injury on
innocent people. Such an operation had, moreover, much to recommend it
from the point of view of general Japanese policy; for "in attacking
in his stronghold the most violent and rash of his class, it may be
possible," said the British Minister, "by one blow to paralyse the whole
body of Daimios.... The command of the Inland Sea and the whole internal
trade of that portion of Japan which must of necessity be in our hands
during any operations would do more, probably, to bring the Court of the
Mikado and of Yedo to a sense of the danger and folly of entering upon
hostilities with the treaty Powers than any course of diplomacy.... The
alternative is a probable catastrophe, and a war of a protracted kind at
no distant period."

About this time the appeals which for two years had been made in vain to
the British military authorities in China for a sufficient force to give
security at Yokohama were listened to, and a regiment of infantry, the
20th, and of marines, were detached from Hongkong and a force of Beloochis
from Shanghai. One of the anomalies of an unprecedented situation was that
the Government, which was concerting measures to expel all foreigners,
was nevertheless constrained to provide accommodation for these troops,
"which were not to make war, but to prevent acts which would lead to war."
For all that, the presence of foreign troops on the sacred soil was far
from palatable, even though the Tycoon might secretly acquiesce in the
reasoning by which the British Minister had commended a measure which was
in any case an unavoidable necessity.

The arrival of these troops had a marked effect on the tactics of the
Tycoon. For ten months his Government, which had been powerless and
passive regarding the warlike proceeding of Choshiu, now became alarmed
lest the foreigners were about to take the law into their own hands with
that recalcitrant Prince. The Tycoon's Ministers began to affect much
concern for his punishment and repression. They would at once move against
him, and until the result of their efforts was known they urged that the
British garrison should remain absolutely passive in Yokohama.

For effective action against the Daimio Choshiu it was necessary that an
agreement should be come to among the treaty Powers, three of whom had
been in actual collision with his batteries and armed ships. Individually
Great Britain had not received this direct provocation, and was only
interested in the general question of the obstruction to commerce and in
the maintenance of the political status of the Powers. How the concert
was brought about would be an interesting inquiry, but we may safely
conclude that the achievement owed much to two causes, one positive and
one negative. The former was the strong will, clear sight, and absolute
fearlessness of responsibility of the British Minister; the latter was
the non-existence of any ocean telegraph. For, as we have so frequently
seen nearer home, the direct efforts of the Great Powers to arrive at
any agreement for common action are always protracted, often abortive,
and seldom successful. The decision in this case had to be taken by the
agents on the spot, personally intimate with each other, acting on general
principles and on a free interpretation of the instructions from their
Governments. And so it came to pass that within three months after Sir
Rutherford Alcock's arrival in Japan the Ministers of France, the United
States, the Netherlands, and Great Britain had signed a protocol in which
they agreed to make a fresh representation in the nature of an ultimatum
to the Tycoon's Government, calling upon it to adopt means to put an end
to the hostilities of the Prince of Nagato, and informing it that on no
account would their Governments allow the port of Yokohama to be closed.
This agreement of May 1864 was the natural sequel to a declaration of 25th
July 1863, by which the same four Powers had intimated to the Tycoon the
necessity of reopening the Inland Sea, but which had remained without any
acknowledgment by the Government. The new _note identique_ addressed to
the Gorogiu was equally left unacknowledged by that body.

Nothing therefore remained but to take the respective naval commanders
into counsel. The Ministers had no authority over them, but it was quickly
found that the concert of admirals and captains was as perfect as that
of the diplomatic body. The ships of the four Powers--Great Britain,
France, United States, and Netherlands--were placed under the command of
Vice-Admiral Sir Augustus Kuper, and a plan of action was settled upon.

The advance to Shimonoséki was still, however, delayed by two
circumstances. The first was the return from Europe of two Japanese
students, out of five who had been sent there the previous year by that
very Prince of Choshiu against whom coercive measures were about to be
undertaken. These young men, hearing while abroad of the proceedings
of their chief, and convinced, from what they had seen in Europe, of
the overwhelming resources of the Powers, that Choshiu was bringing
disaster on himself in forcing battle on such antagonists, resolved to
hurry back to Japan with the express object of warning their prince of
his danger. The arrival of the two youths in Yedo was thought by the
foreign Ministers to offer some chance of coming to terms with Choshiu
without the arbitrament of arms, and accordingly facilities were afforded
by Vice-Admiral Kuper for landing the two travellers at the nearest
convenient point to their prince's territory. They were intrusted with
overtures of peace in the form of a long memorandum from the British
Minister, reviewing the whole situation, and explaining the attitude of
the Powers and the hopelessness of the armed resistance of any Daimio. The
messengers brought back to the rendezvous, where a light-draught vessel
waited for them, an oral reply from the prince explaining his attitude
and asking for three months' delay to enable Choshiu to confer with the
Mikado and Tycoon, by whose orders he had done what he had done, and
without whose consent he dare not change his policy. It is interesting
to recall the fact that the names of the two youthful emissaries were Ito
and Inouyé, who have since played so distinguished and honourable a part
in the development of their country.

The second cause of suspension of action against Choshiu was the news
of a convention concluded in Paris between the Japanese envoys and the
French Foreign Minister, dated June 20, 1864, in which this very object of
the reopening of the Straits of Shimonoséki was provided for. Were this
convention to be ratified by the Tycoon the immediate cause of dispute
would be removed. The matter, however, was disposed of with more than its
accustomed promptitude by the Japanese Government, who curtly refused to
ratify the French convention. The Tycoon's Ministers declared themselves
unable to carry out the agreement, and to ratify it would merely be to
add another to their too onerous obligations. Admiral Kuper was finally
given a free hand on August 25, and before the middle of September the
forts and ships of the recalcitrant prince were completely destroyed by
the Allied squadrons, not without considerable resistance and some loss
to the assailants. The action was conducted with admirable harmony among
the officers engaged, and the reciprocity of compliments between the
respective commanders-in-chief, especially between the French and English
admirals, is edifying reading in these later days.

The negotiations which followed on board the British flagship ended in
the most satisfactory manner. Choshiu submitted with a good grace, while
apologetically throwing the blame of his hostile proceedings on the two
higher authorities, the Mikado and the Tycoon.

All the Daimios had been notified of the decision of the Mikado and
the Tycoon to break off relations with foreigners from 20th June 1863.
Three days after this notice its purport was confirmed, and a positive
order given to "make military preparations with diligence that the ugly
barbarians may be swept out." This was promptly followed by a third yet
more explicit. "Bearing this in mind" (the date of expulsion, 20th June
1863), "you must omit nothing which is required to complete the maritime
defences of your province, and you must be ready to sweep them off should
they attack you unawares." A liberal interpretation of these imperial
decrees might be held to cover the aggressive proceedings of the most
powerful Daimio in the empire, whose province happened to command its most
important strategic position, and who watched the continual passing of
foreign ships under the guns of his forts. The time when Choshiu commenced
his attacks on passing ships coincided so exactly with the date assigned
by the Mikado for the general rupture with foreigners, that it is hardly
possible to dissociate his act from the scheme of his suzerain. When
subsequently called before the council, Choshiu boldly defied both Tycoon
and Mikado, declaring that he alone had obeyed the imperial mandate, and
deserved gratitude for executing single-handed the law of the empire for
the extermination of foreigners. The rupture was decreed for June 20.
The American steamer Pembroke was fired on on the 25th, being, no doubt,
the first foreign vessel to pass the straits after the 20th. Whatever
ulterior designs this great feudatory may have entertained, therefore, he
was not altogether without provocation in making a raid on the Mikado's
capital, which he did in the month of August following, and for which he
was condemned by his suzerain to a term of seclusion within his palace,
the usual form of punishment of an offending feudatory, which implies much
more than would appear from this mild definition.

On the capture of the forts at Shimonoséki the Government at once stepped
in and assumed all the obligations, pecuniary and other, which the issue
of the collision imposed on the Prince of Nagato. The town of Shimonoséki
had been spared, but held to ransom. A convention was signed whereby the
Tycoon agreed to pay an indemnity of three million dollars, which was
eventually paid in full, the last instalment of it after the fall of the
Shôgunate.

Taking heart of grace from his defeat by foreigners, the Tycoon, if
not the Mikado also, began to coerce Choshiu on his own account. Not
being able to reach him conveniently in his principality, the Tycoon's
Government set to work to destroy his vast establishment at Yedo. The fire
brigade was employed in this work, and such was the extent of it that
several thousand men were said to be engaged for three days in burning
down the buildings and fittings. Moreover, when categorically questioned
by the foreign Minister whether, now that Satsuma and Choshiu had been
brought under control, "the Tycoon would find it possible to give full
effect to the treaties, and to deal with any recalcitrant or rebellious
Daimios," the confidential Minister of the Tycoon replied without
hesitation, "Yes, certainly."

The defeat of the two most warlike of the Daimios illuminated the
situation and cleared the way for more intelligent action all round.
To the Japanese Government it was once for all demonstrated that it was
not by force of arms that the "ugly barbarians" were to be driven from
the country. The foreign fleets were for the time being invincible, and
the Powers had also shown themselves ready not only to act, but to act
together. There was, besides, a strong garrison of foreign troops in
Yokohama--a British force of 1200 men of all arms, with a marked tendency
to increase. The Mikado and the Tycoon wisely acquiesced in the situation,
so far as foreigners were concerned, not necessarily abandoning their
policy, but at any rate deferring its execution.

Their immediate attention was directed to the internal commotions of the
country, which could not now be long in coming to an explosion. A new
planet had intersected their system and upset its balance. There could
be no rest, therefore, until a new equilibrium was found. Foreign forces
chastising the great feudatories, with the tacit acquiescence and for the
benefit of the suzerain, could only be a step either towards dissolution
and subjugation, or towards renaissance and national unity. Feudalism had
had its day and served its turn; it was wholly incompatible with the new
relations which had been imposed on the country by the foreign Powers. But
where is the State, ancient or modern, that could entirely remodel itself,
as it were, on the field of battle and in front of the enemy? That must
remain the proud speciality of Japan.

The effect of the action at Shimonoséki on the position of foreigners
was at once made apparent in various ways. The Tycoon's Government had
laid a secret embargo on raw silk sent to market at Yokohama as part and
parcel of the general imperial design of closing that port, or, in the
alternative, of a gigantic scheme of Government monopoly of the whole
foreign trade, such being the only form of commerce for which the Japanese
officials had any real sympathy. The stoppage had lasted three months.
After Choshiu's defeat the restrictions were at once officially withdrawn,
though considerable efforts were still required to give full effect to the
withdrawal. Once more, also, "the Tycoon resolved to abandon the policy
of equivocation and duplicity," and to inform the Mikado frankly of the
impossibility of closing the port or of refusing to maintain the treaties.

The moment seemed opportune for raising the question of the ratification
of the treaties by the Mikado, in respect to which Sir Rutherford Alcock
made certain plain statements in a letter addressed to the Tycoon in
person. "There exists," he said, "a want of accord on the subject of
foreign relations between the Mikado and Tycoon.... The Mikado, by
requiring the abrogation of treaties, has reduced the Tycoon to the
alternative of either disobeying his legitimate sovereign or bringing
on his country all the calamities of war.... The only solution of the
difficulty that promises either peace or security is the ratification
of the treaties by the Mikado." The four foreign representatives
simultaneously pressed the same consideration on the Government, eliciting
from the Japanese Ministers the admission, "We perfectly agree with you,
it should now take place."

It now became the business of the British Minister to show to his
Government that the proceedings at Shimonoséki fulfilled in every point
the instructions he had received from the Foreign Office. This he did in
a despatch dated September 28, 1864, and so convincingly that Earl Russell
wrote in reply--

    Your despatch of the 28th of September is a successful vindication
    of the policy you have pursued.... My despatches of the 26th of
    July were written with a view to discourage the interruption of a
    progressive trade by acts of hostility, and to forbid recourse to
    force while the treaty was generally observed. Those despatches,
    you will understand, remain in full force.

    But the documents you have sent me, which arrived by the last
    mail, show that the silk trade was almost wholly interrupted by
    the Tycoon, who seemed to be preparing to abet or to abandon the
    project of driving out foreigners according to the boldness or
    the timidity of our demeanour.

    In this position there could be no better course than to punish
    and disarm the Daimio Prince Nagato.

    That course had these three separate advantages:--

    1. It gave the best promise of concurrence of the four Powers,
    as France, Holland, and the United States had all been sufferers
    from the Prince of Choshiu's violations of treaty, while we were
    most exposed to risk and loss by any Japanese attack on Yokohama.

    2. It involved proceeding only against a rebellious vassal, and
    not against the Mikado or the Tycoon.

    3. If the operation should prove successful, the four Powers were
    under no obligation to undertake further hostilities unless fresh
    provocation should be received.

    Her Majesty's Government have received with great satisfaction
    the account of the naval operations of the four squadrons, and
    their result, contained in your despatch of September 28. Those
    operations were conducted in the most gallant manner; the loss was
    not considerable; the four Powers acted in harmony together; no
    defenceless city suffered during the hostilities; and the terms
    granted to the offending Daimio were moderate towards him, and
    sufficient for us.

    I have only to add, that I am commanded to express to you her
    Majesty's full approbation of your conduct.

So far so good. But the slow mail service of those days, and the entire
absence of the telegraph, admitted of wonderful interpolations in
correspondence with such far-off countries as Japan. Events marched
quicker than the course of post could follow them, and despatches were
sometimes written which the writer would have given a good deal to recall.
Such was the case here. We have said that soon after Sir Rutherford
Alcock's return to Japan he addressed some weighty despatches to the
Foreign Office on the situation, undoubtedly leading up to the ultimate
employment of force in vindication of the foreign treaties. This was in
full accord with the spirit of Earl Russell's instructions dated December
17, 1863. These were--

  1. To require from the Tycoon and the Daimios the execution of the
    engagements of the treaty.

  2. To consult the admiral and any military officer who may be sent
    to Japan as to the means of strengthening and holding our position
    in Yokohama.

  3. To endeavour to procure from Hongkong the services of a regiment
    of infantry.

  4. The admiral to be authorised to land marines and destroy the
    batteries which have been erected for the evident purpose of
    interrupting the passage of our merchandise, &c.; but he must take
    care that no unarmed and peaceable town should be bombarded.

But when the Foreign Secretary received the Minister's despatches of
May, following the terms of these instructions to their only logical
conclusion, he became alarmed at the prospect of active measures, and
by despatch of August 8 he recalled the Minister under the pretext of
the need of a personal consultation on the state of affairs. This was
followed up by some temporising despatches, saying the Inland Sea was of
no consequence; that the Tycoon was professing an intention to do all
that was necessary; and that the Tycoon and Mikado, seeing the British
forces strong though passive, would gradually drop all hostile policy.
How were these vacillating utterances to be reconciled with the position
so decidedly taken up eight months before?

A disturbing influence had intervened, causing Lord Russell to see Japan
at an oblique angle. Certain other brave words of the Foreign Secretary
in that year, 1864, in connection with the Danish Duchies, had also had
their current turned awry and lost the name of action. Japan was but
an echo. Of course, after the definite energetic policy of the Queen's
representative in Japan had proved a brilliant success, had involved no
complications, had, in fact, been the means of temporarily uniting four of
the treaty Powers, Lord Russell was ready enough to make the _amende_ to
Sir Rutherford Alcock, though to have cancelled his order of recall would
have been too frank an admission of error to expect from any statesman.
In this manner was the career of Sir Rutherford Alcock in Japan brought
to an abrupt, but highly honourable, conclusion. He received his letter
of recall while in the act of completing the final convention with the
Tycoon respecting the affair of the Prince of Choshiu. The announcement
was heard in Japan almost with consternation. The Tycoon's Ministers were
particularly grieved about it, and they sent a strongly-worded letter
to Earl Russell to be laid before the Queen, dwelling on the important
services the envoy had rendered to their country, and begging that he
might be sent back to them as soon as the urgent affairs that required
his presence in England had been settled. The mercantile communities of
the treaty ports were no less warm in their commendation of the services
rendered to them and to general commerce by the decided measures adopted
by the Minister, and in their regret at his departure. "The principal
triumph of your success," they said in a farewell address, "lies in
the fact that you have accomplished all this not only without causing a
collision between her Majesty's Government and that of the Tycoon, but
by actually strengthening the Government from which you obtained the
concessions, as well as by acting in such a way as to secure the cordial
co-operation of the foreign Ministers resident at this port."

Admiral Kuper took so serious a view of the loss of a representative
of such unrivalled experience and virility, that he took it on himself
to address to the Minister privately a weighty appeal, on public and
patriotic grounds, to postpone his departure until at least he had time to
refer again to the Foreign Office, which on subsequent information must
certainly take a different view of the action of their Minister. That
the admiral correctly appreciated the attitude of the Foreign Office is
sufficiently shown by Lord Russell's despatches already quoted, and by
that dated January 31, 1865, which concludes, "I shall wish you to return
at once to Yokohama, to perform in Japan such additional meritorious
services as may be expected from your tried ability and long experience."
But Sir Rutherford Alcock did not consider that the episode would have
left him the prestige necessary for further useful service in Japan, and
he declined to return to that country.

Sir Rutherford remained at his post long enough to secure the fulfilment
of the primary objects of the Allied expedition against Choshiu: the
reopening of trade, which had been practically closed both at Yokohama and
Nagasaki, and a number of most important improvements in the conditions
of foreign residence in Yokohama. These comprised a parade-ground and
racecourse, hospitals, slaughter-houses, filling in of swamp, a clear
and convenient site for consular buildings, a good carriage-road seven
miles in circuit, away from the town, and various other extensions of the
comforts of foreign residents.

The ratification of the treaties, too, by the Mikado was virtually
arranged. The very day before Sir Rutherford Alcock embarked for England
he was enabled to report to his Government that the law interdicting
intercourse and putting all foreigners under the ban of outlawry had
been modified, and its hostile provisions repealed. This was considered
tantamount to the Mikado's acknowledgment of the Tycoon's treaties, and
thus the vice of illegality which had attached to them from their origin
was at last removed. A year later the Mikado distinctly and in so many
words approved of the treaties. This, therefore, may fairly be considered
Sir Rutherford Alcock's last service to his country in Japan. It was
not, however, till 1868, after the attack on Sir H. Parkes while on his
way to the palace of the Mikado, that an edict was published, over the
imperial sign manual, decreeing that the lives of foreigners in Japan were
thenceforth to be deemed as sacred as the lives of the subjects of the
empire.

But it would not have been Japan without an assassination to mark the
close of the Minister's eventful career. Two officers of the British
garrison, Major Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird, on an excursion on horseback
to the romantic district of Kamakura, and near the celebrated bronze
statue of Buddha, were stealthily attacked in broad day by a couple of
two-sworded men, and mercilessly cut down. One of them lived late into
the night, spoke, and drank tea, when the assassins, or accomplices
in the crime, paid another visit to the dying man and, as in the case
of Richardson, despatched him with ghastly ferocity. The Tycoon might
truthfully say, "An enemy hath done this"; but the position of the
Government had been so much strengthened by the collapse of Choshiu that
the Tycoon's officers were no longer afraid of pursuing the criminals
and bringing them to justice, especially as they happened to be _ronin_,
or masterless men. "Twelve similar onslaughts," wrote Sir Rutherford,
"have been made on foreigners, and in no one instance has justice had its
due." For "even in the only case where men were executed, the Government
did not venture in exposing their heads to declare their crime, or admit
that it was for an attack upon foreigners." The present case was to
prove an exception to the hitherto unbroken rule. Within a month certain
accomplices in the crime were brought to punishment in Yokohama, and there
one of the principals, who was executed in presence of British officers,
died boasting of his crime and claiming the highest patriotic sanction
for it.

Sir Rutherford and Lady Alcock took their departure from Yokohama on
December 24, 1864.

VII. THE BIRTH OF NEW JAPAN.

    Four years of civil strife--Cessation of efforts to eject
    foreigners--The adoption of foreign appliances--Educational
    missions--Unanimity of Japanese in cultivating foreign
    intercourse--The merits of those who promoted the movement--Sir R.
    Alcock's services in the cause of Japanese progress--His services
    to Japanese art.

"Is this the commencement of a civil war?" wrote the British Minister
during his first year of residence in Japan. When he left the civil war
was well advanced. Feverish energy was being displayed by every party
in the State. There was a race for foreign ships and armaments among
the Daimios; the Tycoon was involved in a struggle for existence; the
legitimate sovereign was asserting his authority, and the feudatories were
rallying to his support. Neither the immediate nor the remote issues were
clear, but the sword was out of the scabbard, and would not be sheathed
again until a new order of things should be established.

The civil strife, which ended within four years in the abolition of
feudalism and the assumption by the Mikado by divine right of all
administrative functions, may be called revolution, restoration, or merely
evolution, according to the point of view from which we regard it. The
hand of the foreigner had loosened the stone from the mountain-side, but
it rolled down by its own laws. The introduction of foreigners into the
country brought down vengeance on the Tycoon as the responsible agent.
To abase him and transfer the sceptre to another house was perhaps as
far as the views of the hostile princes in the first instance extended.
The consummation of the movement in the unification of the State, though
its natural fruit, grew and ripened with a rapidity which bewildered
the lookers-on. From the moment when the goal was descried a profound
unanimity of sentiment urged the leaders towards it, the territorial
magnates being themselves the first to propose the abolition of the
privileges, titles, and responsibilities of their order, which stood
in the way of nationality in the larger sense. But wide and manifold as
were the issues raised in the course of the brief but fierce struggle, it
concerns us chiefly to remember that the avowed impulse which gave the
first impetus to the whole was the passionate purpose of expelling the
foreigner. This was the rallying cry that brought the entire nation into
line. The presence of the foreigner on the soil sacred to the gods was
an insult and a deep humiliation. The manifestoes of the Daimios, their
invective against the Tycoon, the distress of the Mikado and his constant
imploring appeals for help to purge the land of its defilement, testify
to the sincerity and universality of the feeling. In that sentiment there
was no difference between Tycoon and Mikado, the Daimios attached to the
one and those attached to the other: they were only divided as to the time
and the means, the risks and the consequences.

From the first the foreigners had evidence of the tenacious character
of the Japanese: their persistency in face of difficulties and
discouragements, and, above all, their readiness, not only to risk, but
deliberately to sacrifice, their lives in the pursuit of an object. Such
a spirit would render any people formidable,--most formidable when united
in a common purpose; and their genius for combination is one of their
most typical characteristics. What these qualities have already led to
the world has partly seen; what they will hereafter lead to is perhaps as
much hidden from our generation as the phenomena of the present were from
the preceding one. But from the earliest days of the new intercourse it
was hardly possible to misconstrue the seriousness of the Japanese people,
though their refinement of taste, especially in art, their pleasant
vices, and their addiction to light and frivolous recreation, often masked
their more solid qualities. One word may possibly reconcile the seeming
contradiction. They are an intensely vital people, living every part of
their lives earnestly, which, however, is no synonym for solemnly. The
gravest and the gayest have their appointed place in the social system,
whose parts appear to be co-ordinated as if the whole were a direct
inspiration of nature itself, elastic, accommodating, ever renewing
itself, and yet so highly organised that there is no unemployed surplus,
no waste material, nothing that does not find an effective place in the
great cosmic product. That many practical men have misjudged the Japanese
is beyond doubt. Indeed it is the so-called practical men who are the
most apt to misjudge human phenomena, seeing that their system leaves out
of account all they do not understand, which is usually a good deal. It
was long thought that the Japanese were mere copyists and imitators, and
disparaging epithets have been applied to them under that misapprehension.
But, rightly considered, their very imitation was the clearest proof of
their depth. They had been overcome by the foreigner, therefore they
would help themselves to his weapons--all his weapons, educational,
scientific, ethical, and not merely the machinery of war. This was not
imitation, but adaptation and assimilation. It was no more imitation than
what is seen every day among Americans, for instance, who so successfully
"exploit" the ideas of Europe, and improve on them. It gradually dawned
upon the intelligent few who watched the process from the beginning that
the adaptation of European customs and costume was nothing but a strict
application of the laws of evolution. The Japanese began spontaneously
to appropriate ideas from the dress of Europeans; modifications, scarce
perceptible, were adopted at first by servants. Certain malefactors
advertised for by the Yedo police as early as 1862 were described as
wearing "riding trousers and coats of tight foreign fashion." Each article
of attire was adopted on its merits, for convenience and for no other
reason, one of the first items being buttons. Strange combinations were
sometimes seen, such as a billycock hat, or policeman's cast-off coat with
a few buttons left on, surmounting a pair of bare legs shod with wooden
clogs. Such bizarre combinations were not uncommon during the time of
transition. The growing habits of travel necessitated a revolution in the
coiffure. The ancient custom of shaving part of the head and training the
truncated queue required a staff of skilled barbers to accompany every
travelling party. The expense and inconvenience were intolerable, and so
the old head-dressing had to go the way of obsolete things.

The Japanese deliberately resolved to learn every secret thing that any
foreign nation possessed. To do this they had to be conciliatory, so as
to gain access to schools, laboratories, arsenals, factories of every
kind. Japanese swarmed in the workshops of Europe and America; they took
military, naval, mercantile, and industrial service wherever they could
get it.[10] In such pursuits an outlandish costume would have been a
severe handicap, not merely marking them as strangers, but hampering them
for the mechanical work they might be engaged in. To be the comrades of
the foreign workmen they must dress like them, and minimise all personal
peculiarities. It is often said by those who regret the change that
the native dress was so becoming, and that the Japanese looked ever so
much nicer in their own than in foreign garb--which may be true, though
irrelevant. To look nice was not what they were aiming at. They had to
join the family of nations, to become men of the world, to comply with
all civilised observances, and as much as in them lay to avoid attracting
notice to their nationality. Such a programme necessitated adoption of
the common costume of the Western nations, and if we do not accuse German,
French, English, and Americans of being imitators, who for similar reasons
adopt a uniform society habit, why should the Japanese be imitators when
doing the very same thing? Let the world not deceive itself,--there is
something more serious than copying in the development of the Japanese
nationality. Borrowers they have undoubtedly been, and that on a grand
scale. Religion, philosophy, language, literature, art, and artistic
manufacture they took bodily from China, apparently through Korea. But who
shall say they have not improved upon their teachers? That is a kind of
borrowing which may yet carry Japan very far. We should not forget that
even a Shakespeare may be an incorrigible borrower.

From the first appearance of Commodore Perry's "black ships" in 1853
one idea took complete possession of the Japanese ruling classes, and
inspired all their manifestoes. How far the common people were in sympathy
with their rulers there was no evidence available to show. The idea was
that their nation was weak, and in its seclusion had been outstripped by
the nations of the West, and that they must make every exertion to arm
themselves in order to be able to cope with and to expel the barbarians.
All their temporising with the enemy had this end in view, and they
followed it up with such zeal, intelligence, and national harmony, as to
excite both wonder and admiration. In the building up of their nation, and
giving it a status among the military and industrial Powers, the Japanese
freely and extensively employed foreigners in all capacities, dispensing
with their services when done with as naturally as a builder dispenses
with his temporary scaffolding. They used foreigners from the outset,
but have never allowed foreigners to use them. They have thus remained
the masters in their own house, and therein has lain their strength,
present and prospective. Teaching they have recompensed with coin; and
though confidences have been received with courtesy, their own plans and
purposes have been veiled from the most honoured of their tutors. Their
attitude has remained what it was in the days of the Dutch monopoly,
when instruction in Western lore, including naval and military science,
was freely imparted to them, while the uses to which it was applied were
studiously hidden from the teachers. Though the Dutch, for example, taught
the Japanese mathematics and triangulation so successfully that the pupils
were able to make accurate surveys and construct maps of the country and
charts of its sea-coasts, yet the Dutch were never permitted to see the
finished result.

In looking back on the work of those foreign Governments and their
agents who by their interference shook this new nation into life, it is
obvious that they did not, any of them, know what they were doing. There
was a divinity shaping their ends which they, with their conventional
concessions to the modern spirit, had no idea of. If we are to pass
judgment at all on those men, it must not be by the ulterior consequences
which they did not and could not foresee, but on the merits of the
problem which immediately presented itself to them. The demand for free
intercourse with Japan being shared by all the nations of Christendom
was bound to be satisfied one day: it was but a question of a favourable
opportunity. Commodore Perry and the United States Government made their
opportunity. Townsend Harris had his opportunity made for him, and with
great adroitness, and not too much scruple, he took advantage of it to
force the half-open door. Lord Elgin, in his turn, did a smart thing in
sandwiching in a full treaty with Japan between his earlier and later
negotiations with China. Each in his degree contributed to the general
result without any apparent sense of responsibility for unsettling an
ancient polity of which they were ignorant, and to which they were blind.
Lord Elgin was indeed visited by the qualms of conscience which were as
natural to him as they were honourable, but the particular consequences
of which he had a passing dread were not those which followed. In any
case, his act was momentary: its results remained to be dealt with by
those who came after. The heat and burden of the day fell upon those who
had to "stub the Thurnaby waste" which the cavaliers had gaily cantered
round,--to reduce theories and compliments to everyday practice. Here was
not only a labour but a responsibility, not of the attenuated abstract
order, but one which was apt to knock violently at their door every
morning and every night. For whatever might be the remote effects, the
immediate issues were always urgent, and what a conscientious man had to
do was to shape a daily course among unknown rocks and whirlpools such
as would eventually lead to a successful ocean voyage. It is surely a
test of good pilotage in such emergencies that no step need be retraced;
that to whatever extent temporary exigencies may hasten or retard, they
should never deflect the general movement from its true direction; that
the years achievement should be homogeneous with the day's doings. It is
a test which would eliminate the time-server from political life, but it
was in all important particulars well responded to in the short career of
Sir Rutherford Alcock in Japan.

It would be idle to conjecture the probable course of events had a
different spirit prevailed among the first diplomatic representatives
in Japan. Had they been a weak and yielding body, or had they been
connected with the bureaux of their respective Governments by electric
wire; still more, had each step taken by them formed a bone of contention
between opposing factions in their legislatures, all alike ignorant of
the situation, the proceedings of the Ministers would not only have been
deprived of all initiative, but would have been liable to paralysis at
every critical moment. Under such conditions foreign policy in Japan
would have been like driftwood in a whirlpool; the forces of reaction must
have gained courage; the position of foreigners would have been rendered
untenable; and what might have happened in the country itself it would,
as we have said, be quite idle to imagine. In those days no Power would
have interfered to maintain order or to defend treaties had England held
aloof. There is no need to carry hypothesis further than this in order
to appreciate the good fortune not only of Great Britain herself, but of
Japan and the world, in having as pioneer representative a man so alert,
so capable, so clear, and with such unshakable nerve as Sir Rutherford
Alcock; for it is the man on the spot in distant countries who shapes
the policy of his Government, if it is to have a policy at all, and this
historic service the first Minister sent to Japan did effectually render
to his country. Amid difficulties unprecedented, emergencies incessant,
and an elemental strife ever raging, the terms of which were inscrutable,
two immutable principles guided the Minister to a clear issue. The first
was duty, at all costs and hazards; the second, the integrity of the
treaties. Whatever might be argued about the policy or the ethics of
making them, once made, retreat from their engagements was impossible
and compromise futile. Matters had to be pushed to an issue. The whole
term of Sir Rutherford Alcock's service in Japan was filled up with
a warfare against the temptation to temporise in the hope that things
would be better,--a temptation to which, as we have seen, her Majesty's
Government for a time succumbed. In perplexing situations the best solvent
is simplicity, and the Minister found his safety in directness of aim and
inflexibility of purpose. Standing on that rock, the mystifications with
which he was surrounded lost their power to disturb him. "Fortunately,"
he wrote to Earl Russell, "whether the Tycoon was playing a comedy or
not, the course plainly indicated is the same, the assertion of a fixed
determination not to be driven out, and to maintain the rights secured
under treaties, by force, if all other means fail."

To the man who perceived and successfully carried out this simple rule of
action his countrymen owe no common debt.

As it is proverbially the busiest people who have the most leisure, the
British Minister found time in the midst of his harassing labours to
employ his æsthetic gifts for the benefit of the public. It fell to his
lot, as the reader may remember, while consul in Shanghai, to contribute
samples of the art, industry, and natural products of China to the
Great Exhibition of 1851, neither the native Government nor the foreign
mercantile community being sufficiently interested to assist in the
work. A similar service was asked of him in Japan for the Exhibition of
1862, and it was performed under similar conditions, neither the native
Government nor the foreign residents taking any part in it. The task
had a special fascination for Sir Rutherford, for Japanese art was a new
and rich field for the student as for the dilettante. The Japanese had
originally borrowed their whole art, with their literature and religion,
from China, but they had improved or at least transformed it so much as
to make it their own, though it is contended that in ceramics they had
never succeeded in overtaking the Chinese. For five hundred years they
had worked on the Chinese idea; but at last in the eleventh century A.D.
native schools sprang up, and thenceforth Japanese artists followed their
own inspiration, which was that of nature, producing, in the fulness of
time, the exquisite results with which the world is now so familiar.
The introduction of this Japanese work to the connoisseurs of Europe
through the London Exhibition of 1862 was effected through the personal
exertions of Sir Rutherford Alcock, who added immensely to the obligations
under which he laid his countrymen by the publication in 1878 of a short
but comprehensive work on 'Art and Art Industries of Japan.' Like the
collecting of objects for the Exhibition, the writing of this book was
evidently a labour of love. It reviews with a sympathy which almost
rises to enthusiasm not only the finished product, but the stages of the
evolution of Japanese art, having its origin in a loving fellowship with
nature and in a special affinity with what may be called its humorous
side. The genius of Japan has taken a different form from that of the
West, where "the great works of the sculptor and the painter are seen by
but few," whereas the art work of Japan, "which is always in sight, tends
to cultivate the taste of the million by bringing constantly before their
eyes objects of taste, not less effective because they are unconsciously
felt and enjoyed." It is art pressed into the service of the life of the
people "which can give a priceless value to the commonest and least costly
material by the mere impress of genius and taste, ... which is the most
precious, tested by any true estimate of value and utility." The volume
is well worth perusal by those who are interested in art, not only for
its philosophical yet simple analysis of the subject generally, but for
the instructive way in which universal principles are adapted to the
popularised art of Japan. To read this book, one would imagine the writer
had devoted the whole of the three years and a half he spent in Japan to
the cultivation of the industrial fine arts.

The Japanese language, too, attracted the interest of the busy Minister,
who during his stay in Yedo brought out a grammar and phrase-book in
Japanese and English. They have, as a matter of course, been superseded by
the more recondite studies of later students; but as a first step towards
familiarising the language to visitors and strangers these introductory
works cannot be denied their meed of merit.

VIII. THE DIPLOMATIC BODY--TSUSHIMA.

    Four Western Powers represented in Tokio--Russia only in
    Hakodate by consul--And naval officers--Cordial Anglo-French
    relations--Temptations to intrigue--Secret communications to
    Japanese--Representatives of the Powers arousing suspicions
    of each other's designs--Letters cited--The Tsushima
    incident--Admiral Sir James Hope obtains its evacuation by
    Russians.

During the first few years there were four representatives of the
Western Powers resident in or near the Tycoon's capital: they were the
Ministers of Great Britain, the United States, France, and Holland.
Russia had accredited no Minister, but intrusted her interests to the
very capable hands of M. Goskavitch, consul at Hakodate, the treaty port
in the northern island of the Japanese group. What was no doubt deemed
of at least equal importance, she maintained a powerful squadron on the
western coast of Japan, whose actual strength was magnified to the view
by their incessant activity, which had the character of a continuous
demonstration on the coast both of China and Japan; and the principle of
direct action by naval officers without the medium of diplomacy, at the
ports of Nagasaki and Hakodate, was so different from that of any other
Power, that the Daimios declared to the Tycoon that any of the foreigners
could be safely insulted except the Russians. Their manœuvres in force
round Hongkong, meaningless to the ordinary professional or political
eye, played probably a corroborative part in the impressions they were
making on the rulers of the neighbouring countries. Prussia had not yet
come effectually on the scene when the decisive operations against the two
great Daimios, which really determined the future course of events, were
undertaken.

The relations of the resident foreign Ministers among themselves
were marked by substantial harmony, in some instances rising to great
cordiality. The foreign diplomatic body thus presented a united front to
the forces, open or covert, that were opposed to them. Such differences of
opinion as arose in the course of business either were not of a nature, or
were not allowed, to interfere with the pursuit of the national interests
of each, which were inextricably bound up in the common interests of all.
United, the influence of the Powers was practically irresistible; divided,
they would have fallen an easy prey to the devices of what, for want of
another term, must be spoken of as the common enemy, Japan. It is not
pleasant to think of Japan in this way, since she was on her defence in
a position forced upon her; yet overruling circumstances had, in fact,
placed the parties in temporary antagonism--the world against Japan.

The key to the success of European diplomacy of the earlier period was
without doubt the Anglo-French alliance, which had culminated in the
coercion of imperial China, and was spending its ebbing strength in
suppressing the great Taiping insurrection against that empire. Being
possessed of mobile forces within call, the two Powers were always in a
position to act when circumstances called for action, and they had become
accustomed to co-operation. Hence the potency of their united counsels.

The Minister of France as well as the admiral on the station had the
instructions of the Imperial Government to support England in her Far
Eastern policy,--"for," said the calculating Emperor Napoleon III.,
"though our interests in that part of the world are trivial, we may find
our account in the friendship of England in quarters where our interests
are vital." That the Ministers of the two countries, therefore, should be
on terms of official intimacy and mutual confidence was only natural, and
it was a tower of strength to them both. But we gather from the despatches
that personal respect and attachment went hand in hand with the official
_liaison_; and whether it was Sir Rutherford Alcock or Colonel Neale on
the one side, or M. Duchesne de Bellecourt or Leon Roche on the other,
their expressions towards their colleagues were always of the warmest.
So completely confidential were their relations, that when something was
insinuated by third parties which, if credited, would have necessitated
explanations between the two, it was simply dismissed as unworthy of
consideration. There were not wanting those who would have regarded with
equanimity a little more coldness between the Allied colleagues.

For, notwithstanding their good fraternal relations, it cannot be said
that the foreign officials in Japan were uniformly successful in resisting
the besetting sin of diplomacy, the common temptation to intrigue. In
certain cases it was resorted to as the natural means of advancing the
solid interests of a particular country; in other cases, where no national
interest could be served by it, it would appear that intrigue was its own
allurement, followed for the mere pleasure of the game. The political
situation in Japan was sufficiently complicated to afford occasion for
both these motives of action. The unstable Government of the country,
oppressed by conflicting obligations and consciously struggling for
existence, offered an ideal theatre for volunteer experimentation by those
on whom no ulterior responsibility rested.

Be that as it may, however, secret communications did pass between certain
foreign officials and the Japanese Government of a kind which betrayed the
design of undermining the interests of other Powers and frustrating their
policy, presumably for the benefit of those whose zeal in the cause of
international honour impelled them to adopt the _rôle_ of international
informers. It need hardly be said that Great Britain was a principal
object of these occult practices; neither need it be denied that she
suffered from their effects in the estimation of the Japanese Government,
which was naturally credulous of any disparagement of the Powers it
dreaded so much. In the incandescent condition of the intercourse of those
earlier years, had any of the foreign agents spoken well of his neighbours
he would have obtained no hearing for his praise; but given vilification
for its motive, the representation would find its way straight to the
Japanese heart, since nothing could be too vile to be believed of the
intentions of any of the foreign nations. The spy system was congenial
to the Japanese, woven into their whole administration; while as regards
foreigners, they had had ample experience centuries before of the lengths
Christian nations would go in traducing each other for the sake of gaining
a little favour of the rulers of Japan. It was entirely in keeping with
their medieval experiences that these dastardly barbarians should now
be ready to stab each other in the back. Whatever reception, therefore,
on other grounds, might be accorded to gratuitous information conveyed
through prejudiced channels, no surprise was occasioned by it, and as
little doubt of its truth, so long as its burden was evil. This much has
to be borne in mind as a tribute to the intelligence of the writers of
letters such as the following, addressed to the Gorogiu, or Bureau of
Foreign Affairs, and conveyed to them with ostentatious secrecy. In 1860
one Government agent wrote--

    Last year towards the middle of the second month the English
    created great difficulties in China in consequence of the war
    they waged by sea and land. They had violated the treaties in
    a shameful manner, and as this excited the indignation of the
    Chinese they attacked the English on the river, and captured three
    men-of-war. Feeling herself humbled by this defeat, England swore
    revenge. She uttered the most unjust menaces against China, and
    at the very moment the Chinese commenced their conferences upon
    this subject four or five months ago the English suddenly ordered
    forty-seven men-of-war from London. These vessels are at present
    at Chusan, and await the signal for action. Within two or three
    months the men-of-war will leave for the north. The merchant
    vessel Dayspring brought us all this news on the 12th instant.

    On speaking about this important news to Mr ----, the British
    Consul residing here, he gave me the following information in a
    strictly private manner.

    "At last," said Mr ----, "the war with China is decided upon.
    We have for a long time been searching for a good harbour where
    we shall be able to put the sick and wounded. We have chosen
    Tsushima, where we intend to send the sick and wounded, and as
    soon as the war has commenced we have resolved to take possession
    of that island."

    Mr ---- communicated this to me as a great secret, and I now give
    you this information in a strictly private manner.

    You will perceive that this is a question of the utmost
    importance, and you must take it into serious consideration
    without delay, and with the utmost attention.

    Four years ago the English, who had for a long time coveted
    an excellent little island called Perim, took possession of
    it, informing the Turkish Government that they only wished to
    place their invalids on that island, and this false pretext was
    matter for serious discussion. The Turks were perfectly aware of
    the deceitful conduct of the English. They did not ignore that
    fourteen or fifteen years before, while fighting with the Chinese,
    the English had stolen Hongkong under the same pretences.... But
    while they were deliberating the English sent their invalids to
    Perim, and immediately built forts and stole this island in the
    most disgraceful manner.

    As the English are wonderful impostors, it is your duty not only
    to take care of Tsushima, but also of the smallest island in your
    empire: this must be done with the utmost watchfulness.

    I inform you of this danger in the most private and secret manner.

And a year or two later, when the intercourse between the British Minister
and the Tycoon was charged with contentious, almost with explosive,
matter, missives were passed in from philanthropic onlookers of a tenor
which excited no surprise, but a good deal of genuine exultation, in the
minds of the Japanese Ministers. It was well known some time before that
it had been sought to prevent a settlement of outstanding difficulties
between the two countries by the assurance volunteered to the Tycoon's
Government that Great Britain was quite unable to make war on Japan,
and the following letter is only one of a series of such international
amenities which shunned the light of day:--

    Japan was opened by us, ... and after we had settled down here
    the other Powers made their appearance. The intentions of ...
    in opening this country to foreign intercourse was to increase
    the welfare and prosperity of its inhabitants. While we were
    doing our utmost for this nation some English men-of-war suddenly
    appeared here to demand indemnities for a murder which, although
    unjustifiable, was not a _casus belli_. As long as the ambitious,
    warlike, and quarrelsome Englishmen are here, the object we have
    in view cannot be obtained. They must, therefore, be driven out
    of this country. You cannot consent to their demands. Do not
    fear the English; there are other nations in Japan, and if you
    require assistance you may rest assured we shall give you moral
    and material support.

But in vain was the snare set by these fowlers in the sight of the bird.
The notion of setting a thief to catch a thief was not uncongenial to
Japanese habits of thought, but a generous offer of armed assistance
against a foreign Power savoured too much of the wooden horse even for
such inexperienced internationalists as the New Japan. Having expressed
their appreciation--had it been the Chinese Government it would have taken
the form of praise for their loyal obedience--the Government intimated
that they would exhaust their own resources before putting these friendly
foreign Powers to the trouble of intervening on their behalf. The Japanese
have always been wary about accepting help unasked for. The United States
frigate Niagara, which brought back the envoys in 1860, brought also a
staff of artillery officers whose services were tendered to the Tycoon,
but declined. And it was said the American officers were rather astonished
by the proofs afforded them in Yedo of the efficiency of armament and
proficiency of the gunners which Japan was already able to show.

One of the vigilant observers of political portents about that time became
convinced that the French had designs upon Tsushima, a belief which was
no doubt in some way also communicated to the Japanese Government; but
by that time--1863--it was too late for any Power to flirt with that
"excellent little island," for since the first warning given the Japanese
in 1860, above cited, the island had been made the subject of definitive
arrangements. The incident itself, though of brief duration and leaving
no visible trail behind it, nevertheless deserves to be remembered as a
landmark of history.

When Count Mouravieff was in Yedo in 1859, he took the trouble to warn
the Tycoon's Government that the English harboured aggressive designs
against the island of Tsushima, which is a long double or "twin" island,
possessing wonderful harbours, and situated midway between the main
island of Japan and the southern coast of Korea. On March 13, 1861, the
Russians landed from the corvette Possadnik in Tsushima, and saying their
ship wanted repairs, began to build houses on shore. Captain Birileff had
forced the Prince of Tsushima to receive him at his capital, which created
an intense feeling of indignation, especially in the ranks of the nobles,
who each saw himself exposed to similar intrusions. The Daimio repeatedly
requested the Russians to leave, but was always told the ship required
further repairs. In consequence of reports from his own officers and the
Japanese Government, Vice-Admiral Sir James Hope looked in at Tsushima
himself in the month of August, and observing what was going on there,
he addressed a letter to Captain Birileff, of which the substance was as
follows: The prolonged stay of his Imperial Majesty's corvette Possadnik,
the erection of buildings, &c., having created alarm in Yedo, the admiral
had the intention to communicate on the subject as early as possible
with Commodore Likatchoff. Would Captain Birileff meantime facilitate
this correspondence by replying to the questions--(1) Should the Japanese
Government appeal to the treaty, which conveys no right either to create
establishments ashore, to survey the Japanese coast without Government
sanction, or even to enter a non-treaty port except in case of necessity,
would Captain Birileff's orders admit of his leaving Tsushima immediately
on the request of the Japanese authorities? (2) Was it Captain Birileff's
intention to leave Tsushima in October as previously stated to Commander
Ward, leaving the buildings to whomsoever wanted them?... (3) Had the
captain orders to create a permanent establishment there?

The reply of Captain Birileff was to the effect that the officers of his
Imperial Majesty were accountable only to their own chiefs; ... that he
was quite astonished to hear of the alarms in Yedo, seeing that only two
months before the Prince of Bungo had been sent to Tsushima expressly
from Yedo to grant permission to the corvette to remain there; that the
same prince gave him the opportunity of visiting the Prince of Tsushima,
who was instructed to supply workmen and all that might be necessary
for the construction of the buildings in question; that if the Japanese
Government were annoyed by the surveying operations, they should address
their complaint to the Russian diplomatic agent; that he had no orders
for the occupation of the island, and the nature of the buildings which
the admiral had done him the honour to visit would not show any such
intention; and finally, that when he spoke of leaving in October it had
referred only to himself personally. So far Captain Birileff.

It was no "Prince of Bungo," but a Governor of Foreign Affairs named
Bungo, who had been despatched in haste from the capital to endeavour by
any means to induce the Russians to leave Tsushima, and was, for his want
of success, disgraced.

Sir James Hope forthwith proceeded in search of Commodore Likatchoff to
Olga Bay, whence he addressed to him a letter dated September 5, pointing
out the irregularity of the proceedings at Tsushima, the bad effect they
were having on the relations of foreigners generally in Yedo, and that he
could not recognise any establishment on Japanese territory not sanctioned
by treaty--which resolutions he would make known to the authorities
concerned.

To this the Russian commodore courteously replied from Hakodate, September
23, excusing himself from entering on any international questions, and
pointing out that in their hydrographical labours the Russians were only
following the excellent example set them by the British surveying officers
whom they met on their respective missions, and that no complaint had ever
been made by the Japanese Government. As for the "absurd rumours" alluded
to, the Possadnik had already received orders for another destination,
before receipt of the admiral's letters, and nothing consequently need be
said to calm the doubts and alarms, "si même elles auraient véritablement
raison d'exister."

Admiral Hope acknowledged this letter, "with much satisfaction," from
Chefoo, October 22, and remarked that, so far as the surveying operations
of the ships in his squadron were concerned, they were carried out with
the full consent of the Japanese Government, at whose special request
Japanese officers and interpreters were accommodated on board during
the whole of the cruise. He added that it was not so much the surveying
operations of the Possadnik as the preparation for a permanent settlement
on shore that disquieted the Japanese Government; and, moreover, that
the Japanese Ministers had distinctly stated that the matter had been
the subject of remonstrance to the commodore, through M. Goskavitch,
the consul at Hakodate, and to Captain Birileff by an officer specially
deputed for the purpose (Bungo).

The question extended itself to St Petersburg, where Prince Gortchakoff
had remarked to Lord Napier, then British ambassador, on the tone of
Admiral Hope's letter to Commodore Likatchoff, which, he said, but for
the conciliatory disposition of the latter, might have led to serious
misunderstanding. Lord Napier, in reply, observed that "Admiral Hope was
a man of a frank, downright, energetic character, who used the language
natural to him without any intention of giving offence."

As the Russians had abandoned the island, Prince Gortchakoff called
on Lord Napier to declare that the English would never take possession
of Tsushima, whereupon the ambassador reminded his Excellency that the
English had "offered to sign a treaty binding ourselves and the other
Powers having engagements with Japan to make no acquisitions in those
seas." "I think," concludes the ambassador in his letter to the Foreign
Office, "that Admiral Hope will do well to assure himself that the
buildings have really been evacuated." This precaution had already been
taken, and the admiral reported on November 10 that the Russians had
evacuated on September 29.

There the incident ended, but not its historical significance.

IX. TRADE AND TRADERS.

    Commerce increases in spite of adverse political
    situations--And of efforts of Japanese government to repress
    it--The _personnel_ of the mercantile community--British
    predominance--Relations of merchants to Ministers--Interests
    and duties not always identical--Sumptuary laws--Discharges of
    firearms forbidden--Seizure of Mr Moss--Wounding of a Japanese
    policeman--Trial and sentence of Mr Moss--His liberation in
    Hongkong--Sues the Minister and obtains damages--Legal supremacy
    at Hongkong--Defects of the consular jurisdiction--The recreation
    of shooting.

These fierce struggles, the sudden arousing to intensity of dormant
passions, the dislocation of the whole structure of Japanese polity,
represented to the foreign nations merely the risks and sacrifices
incidental to the expansion of their commerce. In order to compel the
Government to permit the people to exchange the products of their soil for
the merchandise of the strangers within their gates, the labour, anxiety,
and expense which we have only faintly indicated were voluntarily incurred
by the Western treaty Powers, and by them in turn forced on the reluctant
rulers of Japan. An _a priori_ judgment of the probable effect of the
sanguinary conditions into which official intercourse had been thrown
would probably have concluded that peaceful commerce could not under such
circumstances exist. The restrictions resulting from an ill-regulated
currency, and from the direct interference of the Government, might have
been deemed sufficient of themselves to check the development of trade.
When to these inimical influences were superadded the further facts that
the foreign traders went in peril of their lives, that the communities
of Nagasaki and Yokohama were at different times in such danger that
provisional arrangements were made for conveying them, bag and baggage, on
board ship, a condition of things less favourable to international traffic
could scarcely be conceived. Yet these difficulties, and a score of others
which could be enumerated, served only to bring into clear recognition
the inherent vitality of commerce, which, like running water, finds its
way through or round almost any obstacle. There were, on the other hand,
circumstances favourable to trade. In Japan, as has been already hinted,
the traders of the country had neither part nor lot in the strife that
raged above and around them, and for the most part they could pursue their
peaceful avocations without fear or hindrance. So the quality of commerce
was not strained; but, shedding its benefits on buyer and seller alike,
it grew from small beginnings till it attained to a volume of world-wide
importance, accumulating momentum as it progressed.

The total amount of foreign trade was a little over one million sterling
per annum for the first three years of the open ports. In the fourth year,
1863, the development of Japanese produce, especially the more precious
commodities, silk and the eggs of the silkworm, began to tell on the gross
values, and the exports for that year amounted to two and a half millions
sterling, the imports of foreign goods being £811,000. The year 1864,
notwithstanding its crowded events of anti-commercial character, witnessed
a notable advance in the value of foreign trade, which in that year
doubled itself. The same thing occurred again in 1865, when the figures
reached a total of eight millions sterling, being double the returns for
1864.

Thus the foreign trade of Japan had fairly established itself as "a going
concern," advancing in war and peace, but with great fluctuations and many
vicissitudes to those engaged in it. From the purely commercial standpoint
the result justified the anticipations of the Powers who opened Japan to
the world. The event proved that when the materials of trade exist there
trade is sure to follow on the removal of obstructions. And the materials
of trade are not wanting wherever there is a population that wears clothes
and builds houses.[11]

It is obvious to remark that had it been in the power of the Japanese
Government to place an effective interdict on foreign commerce at its
sources within their own jurisdiction, and beyond the reach of treaty
obligations, it would have been the surest means of causing the withdrawal
of foreigners from the country. That the Government had the will to do so
was shown by their repeated partial attempts at preventing produce from
reaching the open ports, and even inducing a temporary exodus therefrom
of the native population. Why their measures of repression were not more
thorough may be conjectured to have been connected with the circumstance
that the advantages of the foreign trade soon began to be felt in quarters
with which it was not convenient for the Tycoon to inter-meddle.

As in China, so in Japan, the relations of the merchants to their
official representatives exercised a certain influence on events. The
trade was carried on at first by a very small number of people. In 1861
there were not 200 foreign residents in all the ports of Japan, the
British nationality predominating in Yokohama, the Dutch at Nagasaki.
The British residents in the former port seem to have numbered about
fifty. It was a small body to carry the burden of inaugurating commercial
intercourse with an empire of thirty millions of people. Nor was it
individually a community of any particular weight, being mostly composed
of young men, not themselves principals, but, in the beginning at least,
a considerable number of them occupying the position of delegates of
mercantile houses in China. It was their representative character which
lent importance to the foreign merchants in Japan. They represented,
first of all, the establishments of which they were subordinates or
offshoots; they represented their respective nations; and they, in
a larger sense, represented the commercial creed of Christendom. The
present sketch would be wanting in symmetry if no account were taken
of the relationship of these handfuls of traders to their own national
authorities, both being engaged in the struggle for the development and
security of commerce under the trying conditions of the time and country.
But of course any such inquiry practically limits itself to those of
British nationality, for two reasons: British trade and British diplomacy
were pre-eminently representative of all others by the preponderance of
the interests involved; in addition to which, the strong individuality
and matured experience of the first British envoy were such that his
colleagues tacitly assigned to him the leading _rôle_, so that his was the
personality which exerted the dominant influence in shaping events from
the opening of the ports.

The tendency to divergence of view between the merchants and their
official representatives has already been remarked upon in connection with
affairs in China: it was most pronounced in times of difficulty such as
were chronic for more than twenty years in Canton, where it was so acute
at one time that English Chambers of Commerce made formal complaint to the
Foreign Office that its representative in China--Sir John Davis--refused
to see the merchants in Canton, who desired to present their views to him
in time of danger. The antagonism was natural: it is generically the same
that one hears constantly in this country in the form of complaints and
criticisms of Government, Government servants, and generally of all in
authority--with, however, this difference, that in the many-sided life of
a large society there are buffers between the critics and the criticised.
They do not meet face to face unless it be in such circumstances as on
the floor of "the House" with "a substantial piece of furniture" between;
whereas in nascent communities composed of a few scores of individuals,
where there is no tempering medium, where the parties are never out
of each other's sight, differences are apt to become accentuated like
village scandals. Nothing escapes censure; the smallest indiscretions
have a magnifying lens constantly applied to them, and a sinister colour
is given to innocent trifles. Interests are not diversified, shaded
off, or balanced as in adult nations, but are narrow, concentrated, and
highly sensitive. Between Minister and merchants there was of course a
general identity of interest. They had a common test to apply to all
their proceedings and aspirations, the furtherance of commerce. The
official would, perhaps, add the qualifying adjective "legitimate," in the
interpretation of which differences of opinion might arise; and he would
naturally give a wider scope to the commercial idea than those actually
engaged in trade could or ought to do.

The Minister represents the interests of Great Britain as a whole; the
merchants represent trade generally, but each of them his own interests
particularly, and these various interests cannot always coincide. An
Englishman would naturally give a preference to the manufactures of his
own country, but as a merchant he has to study the requirements of the
country in which he trades, and if he cannot supply them at all, or so
well, by articles manufactured in his own country, he is obliged to seek
them elsewhere. Officials are apt to look askance on this as not fostering
the trade of Great Britain; and while recognising the necessity, the fact
does not warm their sympathy for the merchants of their own country. There
are times also when, from the international point of view, the general
interests of the country may override the special interests of the small
British community in Japan. If policy requires intimate relations between
the Governments, the tendency must inevitably be for the British Minister
to minimise the just causes of complaint of his countrymen in order to
avoid irritation. But the sufferers can hardly be expected to appreciate
sacrifices so forced on them; and so from one cause and another there will
never be wanting grounds of dissatisfaction, and possibly estrangement.

But the ultimate object being definitely agreed upon between the two
parties, there would still remain room for variance in the means,
questions of tactics, of the nearer or the further view, of the present
generation and the next, and so on _ad infinitum_. Where there was a
third party influencing and opposing legitimate commerce by direct or
indirect means, as the Government of China or Japan, whose machinations
called for strong measures of resistance, the occasions of impatience and
dissatisfaction would be frequent, and friction between the representative
and his constituents would naturally result. But perhaps the most
antagonistic of all to harmony was the fact already pointed out, that in
extra-territorialised countries like China and Japan the representatives
of the treaty Powers were necessarily intrusted with exceptional authority
over the persons of their nationals--for they had to assume the functions
denied to the native Governments, of giving the law to the settlers and
punishing evil-doers. What an invidious and onerous position this entailed
on British officials will presently be shown. Yet it was a temporary
necessity, for which nobody was blamable.

In treating of the period of the consulship in Shanghai, a certain
distance or aloofness between Consul Alcock and the community of his
nationals was remarked upon, due to difference of age, taste, culture, or
temperament. This characteristic was rather accentuated than otherwise
by the local circumstances of Japan. The Minister was ten years older,
while the community was about as much younger than in Shanghai, so
that the disparity of age was increased. The mere conditions of life
also placed a material gulf between the diplomatic representatives in
Yedo and the lay residents of Yokohama. The capital city being closed
to all but the diplomatic body, visitors not only required a pass from
one of the Ministers, but, in the absence of available accommodation,
strangers had to rely on the hospitality of the foreign Legations. The
curiosity to see Yedo, which in the early days so attracted tourists
and travellers, threw a heavy and most unfair burden of entertainment on
the Ministers, the principal victim of these birds of passage being of
course the representative of Great Britain. So long, therefore, as the
Legations remained in Yedo the barrier was effectual against personal
intercourse between the Ministers and the permanent residents in Yokohama,
even had mutual affinity been stronger than it was. Like most things,
this local separation between the communities and their representative
had its advantages and disadvantages. While on the one hand it was not
conducive to intimacy, on the other the risk of personal friction was
eliminated by it. Nor was direct intercourse at all necessary in the
conduct of business, seeing the regular official medium of communication
was the local consuls, who had nothing of the Olympian about them, and
were felt by the residents to be men of like passions with themselves,
with easy manners, the spirit of good fellowship, and imbued with the
characteristic sporting proclivities of Englishmen at home and abroad,
always an effective bond of sympathy.

The relations of Sir Rutherford Alcock with the mercantile community
had not been very happily inaugurated, for he clearly felt officially
aggrieved by their settling in Yokohama, instead of waiting till
accommodation could be found for them in Kanagawa; so much so, indeed,
that he seemed almost to deplore the absence of means of coercing them
into obedience to his will.

While the sore as to the location of the settlement was still somewhat
raw, the Minister found yet another grievance against the merchants
in the fabulous demands for Japanese coins which a few of them had put
forward, by way of burlesquing the system of distribution by the native
authorities. The severity with which this schoolboyish escapade was
pilloried, and the community of Yokohama held up to the opprobrium of
the world, was felt by them as going beyond what the merits of the case
warranted, and the incident did not tend to mollify acerbities on either
side.

A year later evidence of a certain widening of the breach became more
conspicuous in the course of a rather exceptional lawsuit, in which a
merchant was heavily mulcted for an offence of which the general opinion
was that he was not guilty. A certain Mr Moss was arrested, cruelly
maltreated, and hidden from his official protector, the consul, by a posse
of Japanese police, for having shot game in the vicinity of Kanagawa.
When faced by these armed men, Mr Moss cocked his gun and threatened
any one who should approach to lay hands on him. The party was numerous
enough to surround and wrest the gun from him, which somehow went off,
wounding one of the men badly in the arm. The Minister ordered the consul
to prosecute Mr Moss for murder, in the Queen's name, the consul himself
being judge, sitting with two assessors. The accused was sentenced to pay
a fine of 1000 dollars (£225) and to be deported from Japan. The assessors
dissented, on the ground that the Japanese evidence was falsified to
order, and that the prisoner was in their opinion innocent of the charge
on which he was tried. In consequence of this dissent the judgment had
to be referred to the Minister, who added to the consul's sentence three
months' imprisonment in Hongkong, whither the culprit was conveyed in a
British ship of war. After a week's incarceration in the Hongkong jail the
warrant for imprisonment was found defective, and Mr Moss was released.
He was then advised to bring an action against Sir Rutherford Alcock in
the Supreme Court at Hongkong, which occupied twelve months, and ended
in a jury awarding damages against the Minister for false imprisonment,
that being the only part of the sentence which could be brought within
the jurisdiction of the Hongkong court. As regards the original sentence
of fine and deportation, the Foreign Office, by advice of their law
officers, had long before quashed the conviction and ordered the fine to
be remitted.

A parallel case had occurred in Canton in 1846. Sir John Davis instructed
the consul there to levy a fine on a British subject for an alleged
offence. Whether just or not, it was illegal, and on appeal to the Supreme
Court in Hongkong, of which colony Sir John Davis himself was governor,
the judgment of the consul was reversed, and the fine of 200 dollars
refunded. Even Sir Frederick Bruce, with all his circumspection, did
not escape falling into the same error with regard to the division of
legal authority between himself and the Supreme Court. "From a careful
perusal of ... her Majesty's Order in Council," he writes, "the chief
superintendent of trade [himself] in cases arising under this section is
the Supreme Court in China: it is for him to prescribe to the consul the
course he is to pursue, and the Supreme Court at Hongkong cannot interfere
in such matters." Her Majesty's Government, however, replied: "You fall
into an error by confounding two distinct questions.... You are mistaken
in treating the question which you have referred to them for decision as
depending upon the 4th and following articles of the Order in Council,"
and so on. So that had it fallen to his lot to give a decision involving
a penalty, he would have been sued not before himself, but before the
Supreme Court at Hongkong, and would have sustained the same reverse as
Sir Rutherford Alcock had done.

These bald facts of the case supplied a striking illustration of the vices
of the consular court system, which was in vogue in China for twenty years
until the establishment of the Supreme Court for China and Japan in 1865.
Consuls were called upon to exercise judicial functions, and Ministers
those of Courts of Appeal, without the slightest preparatory training,
and as often as not without natural aptitude. In criminal cases they were
at once prosecutors and judges, it might even be executioners as well.
The state of conflict in which they lived with the native authorities, of
whom they were accustomed to demand in vain the punishment of malefactors,
placed British officers under continual temptation to prove how promptly
they could bring to justice their own nationals accused of offences
against the natives. This idea of giving object-lessons to Chinese and
Japanese pervades the consular and diplomatic records. English officials
seem to have been oppressed with the reflection of what the natives would
think of the failure of justice in any particular case, and they were
ever apprehensive of political dangers or embarrassments as contingent on
misunderstood lenity to "white men"--natural and proper feelings on the
part of mere political agents, but quite foreign to the administration
of justice according to the rules and maxims of civilised nations. It
seems not unlikely that the obvious lessons of the Moss case itself as
to the incompatibility of judicial and administrative functions, and the
unfair responsibility which their combination threw upon the consular
and diplomatic officers, hastened the realisation of the scheme of an
independent judiciary which was so strongly advocated by Sir Rutherford
Alcock in 'The Capital of the Tycoon.'

These various incidents, and sundry vexatious restrictions imposed on them
from time to time for their own security, no doubt disposed the residents
to look askance at many acts of the Minister, the reasons for which failed
to impress them. But though the surface of the relations between the
Minister and the merchants was thus perturbed, and regrettable, in the
common interest, as the lukewarmness of personal sympathy may have been,
the residents never failed in their respect for the high and sterling
qualities of the Minister, and the courageous manner in which he fought
for his country's interests. It only needed an emergency to give definite
expression to this feeling, and no testimony could be stronger, more
genuine, or less conventional than the farewell addresses in which the
merchants of Yokohama and Nagasaki summed up the brilliant record of a
man of whom they never ceased to feel proud. Instead of detracting from
the value of such spontaneous testimony, the minor differences only lent
emphasis to it, and set the seal of deep conviction on what in an ordinary
case might have passed as the language of mere compliment.

As shooting has been alluded to as an occasion of trouble, a word or two
on the subject of this amusement may have an interest for certain readers.
To the Japanese the pursuit of game seemed to be as strange a form of
sport as the other vagaries of the foreigner. Firearms were not in use
with them, cold steel being the regulation weapon of offence. There was a
tradition that the discharge of firearms within twenty-five miles of the
Tycoon's palace was prohibited by law,--what law or how promulgated was
never clearly made out, though the motive was intelligible enough. For
whatever reason, such game as there was in the country had evidently not
been disturbed; the pheasants were not wilder than the English stall-fed
variety. Small shooting-parties were in the habit of going out for a day,
or half a day, from Yokohama and Kanagawa with dogs and native beaters
among the coppices where the birds lay. The country itself was so charming
to walk or ride over, the peasant-folk were so polite and merry, that
heavy bags were not needed to attract sportsmen. Still, a good shot with
industry and a shrewd acquaintance with the habits of the game could
often get several brace of the splendid green pheasant of the country
(_Phasianus versicolor_) in an afternoon; while at rarer intervals the
finger would tremble on the trigger as one of those magnificent birds
called locally the "copper" pheasant (Soemerring's), with tail feathers
as long as a peacock's, would rise from the furrows and sail grandly
into the impenetrable thicket. Objections had been taken by the Japanese
officials to this form of amusement, because it was not the policy of the
rulers to familiarise the people with the sight of firearms, still less
to facilitate their acquiring them. In accordance with representations
from the authorities, the British consul had requested his nationals in
1859 to desist for a time until some arrangement was come to. This they
did, but in the following season resumed the sport, in which there were
no keener participants than the British consular officers. A contemporary
writer in September 1860 thus refers to the return of the shooting season:
"There being nothing to do, we are all looking forward anxiously to the
1st October, on which day the first onslaught on the feathered race takes
place. The weather is now hot, but we are all in very good health....
We live in a beautiful country, among a civil, amicable, kind-hearted,
and intelligent people. We can roam over the country without let or
hindrance." It is curious to note by the way how tenacious the Englishman
is of the punctilio of his game laws, carrying his observance of them into
countries where he and his laws are alike strangers, and where in many
cases the principles are not applicable to the local conditions.

A new element in the sport appeared with the advent of cold weather, in
the form of flocks of wildfowl, chiefly geese, which spread themselves
over the low-lying grounds, mostly at some miles distant from the
settlements. They were "geese," indeed, quite unsophisticated, having no
fear of man before their eyes--inherited instinct apparently at fault.
"Their tameness was shocking" at first, but they wonderfully soon learned
to be wary with a foreigner and a gun. The morning's bag of one early
riser, riding six miles and back to a nine o'clock breakfast, late in
November, dwindled rapidly from 12 to 6, 4, 2. The birds were shot within
200 yards of the _tokaido_, and in full view of many curious spectators,
armed and unarmed. Men were hired on the spot to carry the game along the
six miles of highroad and through the long street of Kanagawa, the whole
proceeding, in short, enjoying the utmost possible publicity.

The unfortunate Mr Moss, however, a few days later, toiled a whole day
and bagged one, with the consequences we have seen. Whether it was law
or not, the evidence supplied by the birds themselves of prescriptive
immunity from gunpowder attack was overwhelming. Hitherto the heavy winged
wildfowl had felt safe so long as they kept out of sword-range of the
human biped, but the new experience of a detonating missile fatal at fifty
yards broke up in a week the habits of generations, and forced them to
promptly readjust themselves to their environment.

FOOTNOTES:

 [1] "We are never for a moment unwatched; ... if my servant
    runs after a butterfly, a two-sworded official runs after
    him."--Laurence Oliphant, Letter from Yedo, July 1861.

 [2] "As a general rule, our guardians exercise their functions with
    civility; when they are impertinent, one has to submit as one
    would to one's jailor.... With entire humility, one is in no
    danger whatever."--Oliphant, 2nd July 1861.

 [3] The effect of the commercial isolation of Japan on the value
    of general commodities was no less striking. The first foreign
    traders might have bought with eyes shut nearly every article that
    was offered to them, so great was the disparity of prices between
    Japan and her nearest markets. Mr Hunter gives an interesting
    example. "I had in go-downs," he says, "8000 piculs of sapan-wood
    imported from Manila unsaleable at one dollar and a quarter per
    picul, which was about its cost. Immediately that the opening
    of the port of Simoda to foreign trade was announced officially,
    an English vessel was chartered to carry it there. Brief--it was
    sold for 35 dollars per picul, and the proceeds were invested in
    Japanese vegetable wax at a cost of 6½ dollars, and sold for $17
    the picul (133⅓ lb. English)," so that in the short voyage from
    China to Japan and back the capital multiplied seventy times!

 [4] A story is told of two Samurai meeting on a bridge which was too
    narrow to allow of their passing each other. Neither being willing
    to give way, they were about to settle the difficulty at the
    point of the sword, when a peasant, strolling along the dry bed of
    the stream, offered to extricate them without loss of dignity on
    either side. Amused at his impertinence, and curious to see how
    he would effect his purpose, they consented to humour him; and
    when each, following his instructions, was seated in one of the
    baskets at either end of the pole he was carrying, he swung it
    round on to the opposite shoulder, asked pardon, bowed, and went
    on his way, leaving them each facing in the direction in which he
    would proceed.

 [5] Ieyasu says the Samurai are the masters of the four classes.
    Agriculturists, artisans, and merchants may not behave in a rude
    manner towards Samurai. The term for a rude man is, "other than
    expected fellow"; and a Samurai is not to be interfered with in
    cutting down a fellow who has behaved to him in a manner other
    than is expected. The Samurai are grouped into direct retainers,
    secondary retainers and nobles, and retainers of high and low
    grade; but the same line of conduct is equally allowable to them
    all towards an "other than expected fellow."

 [6] "All my old friends have disappeared," writes Laurence Oliphant
    on his return to Yedo as secretary of Legation. "One who was an
    especial favourite of mine when I was here last, ripped himself
    up a short time ago; and two of the other commissioners are
    disgraced, and it is supposed have followed his example. This was
    all on account of their friendship for foreigners. Every one, down
    to the lowest interpreter, who has had anything to do with the
    introduction of foreigners, has disappeared or been disgraced."

 [7] This man, Murioka by name, became afterwards well known to
    foreigners, and was always ready to talk freely about the whole
    transaction. When asked why he struck at a lady he would reply,
    "How should I know, never having seen a foreign woman, least of
    all on horseback?"

 [8] It was a common thing for a Daimio to rid himself of the irksome
    obligations of his position by abdicating in favour of his son.
    On better acquaintance Shimadso Saburo proved a most genial old
    gentleman. Three years later he entertained Sir Harry and Lady
    Parkes at his capital most hospitably.

 [9] Count Inouyé, the foremost statesman of the new Japan, is said
    to have confessed that he set fire to the British Legation with
    his own hand with the express object of embarrassing the Tycoon's
    Government.

 [10] The following souvenir of Count Mutsu, Foreign Minister of
    Japan, who died in 1897, told by Mr J. F. Lowder and quoted in
    'Things Japanese' by Mr Basil Hall Chamberlain, affords a graphic
    illustration of this point. "In the very early Sixties, when
    he was in his nineteenth or twentieth year, he was in Nagasaki
    desirous of acquiring a knowledge of English. A lady of my
    acquaintance taking an interest in him used to devote an hour or
    two every morning to teaching him to read and write, but it was
    not long before he came to me despairing of his slow progress, and
    asking whether I could not give him a berth on board ship where
    nothing but English was spoken. Believing him to be physically too
    weak to stand such an ordeal, I endeavoured to dissuade him, but
    without success; and so with some misgivings I shipped him as a
    cabin-boy, which was the only position I could obtain for him, on
    board a small British schooner that used in those days to voyage
    between Nagasaki and Shanghai. How long he remained on board I
    cannot say, but my recollection is that it was a very considerable
    time."

 [11] The foreign trade of Japan now (1900) approximates 40 millions
    sterling, exports and imports being very nearly balanced.

CHAPTER XX.

SIR RUTHERFORD ALCOCK IN PEKING, 1865-1869.

I. THE BRITISH LEGATION.

    Contrast between Peking and Yedo--Finds old comrade Wade--The
    Manchu statesmen, Kung and Wênsiang--Material progress pressed
    upon them--Their failure to appreciate foreign advice.

Sir Rutherford Alcock had spent only a few months in England when he was
appointed to succeed Sir Frederick Bruce as Minister to China, he himself
being succeeded in Japan by Sir Harry Parkes. Sir Rutherford reached
his post in Peking at the close of 1865. The change of scene from Japan
back to China was even more striking than that from China to Japan had
been in 1859. The excitement of shooting the rapids was succeeded by the
weariness of meandering among mud-shoals--the same medium to work in,
only under different conditions. Fundamentally the international problem
was identical in Japan and China--the conflict between aggression and
resistance. Rational dread of, and natural repulsion to, foreigners,
inspired alike the policies of both countries. Where they differed was
in the manner of meeting the invasion. Japan braced herself nervously
to the effort, and, distinguishing between what was feasible and what
was not, organised a counter-invasion unsuspected by foreign nations,
whom she subdued by their own strength. China, on the other hand,
opposed a fatalistic and unreasoning resistance, making no intelligent
counter-stroke and showing no true anticipation of the issues of the
struggle. The energy of ambitious youth on the one side; on the other mere
inertia, irresponsive to the stimulus of pride, shame, patriotism, or even
material interest. Bearing this contrast in mind, we may partly understand
the prosaic _rôle_ which foreign representatives were doomed in China to
play from the time the capital was forced open by Anglo-French arms in
1860.

The position of the new British Minister was different from that which he
had occupied in Japan, where, being first in the field, he had to make
precedents, whereas in China he had to follow the course which had been
marked out during the previous four years. In judging of the wisdom of
that course, it is fair to apply the same retrospective criterion that we
proposed in the case of Japan--namely, to consider the situation so far as
it was known and could be realised at the time. Notwithstanding all that
had gone before, China in general, and Peking in particular, remained as
great mysteries to foreigners as Japan itself. The pioneer diplomatists
had to create their diplomacy out of their own consciousness, working upon
an idea which they imported, and not on the objective facts, which were
mere chaos to them.

Sir Rutherford Alcock had the happiness to find the Peking Legation
in charge of his old vice-consul, Thomas Wade, from whom he had been
officially separated for ten years. Mr Wade was Chinese secretary and
secretary of Legation, offices which were some years later separated, to
the infinite detriment of both. For the secretary of Legation, drawn from
the ranks of the diplomatic service, had neither knowledge of nor interest
in Chinese affairs, nor aught to do but wait idly for the contingency
which might make him _chargé d'affaires_, reckoning every month spent
in the country as a penance entitling him to swift promotion to a more
congenial sphere. And the Chinese secretaryship, by itself, offered no
attraction to an ambitious man. But in 1865 the combination of offices was
most important, especially in the hands of a man of so much distinction
as Mr Wade. As the custodian of the Bruce tradition, if indeed he had not
a large share in its evolution, he bridged the gulf between the outgoing
and the incoming Minister, much as the Permanent Under-Secretary does at
the Foreign Office.

As Mr (afterwards Sir Thomas) Wade, in the capacity of secretary, _chargé
d'affaires_, and Minister Plenipotentiary, represented Great Britain at
the Chinese Court for the best part of a quarter of a century, a term
equal to that of the other six Ministers put together, a brief reference
to his personality seems necessary to a just comprehension of the course
of affairs during his long residence in Peking.

Mr Wade began life as a soldier. He had been in the "Black Watch," but,
being the only officer who could not speak Gaelic, found it congenial to
exchange into the 98th Regiment, with which he served in China during the
first war. He was adjutant of the regiment, which was commanded by Colonel
Campbell, afterwards Lord Clyde. When peace was made in 1842, he resigned
his commission and betook himself to the study of Chinese and of Chinese
subjects. After qualifying as interpreter he became Chinese secretary to
the Superintendency of Trade, which until 1858 was domiciled in Hongkong.
Transferred to the consular service, he was for some years interpreter and
vice-consul at Shanghai, where it fell to his lot to command the local
volunteers in the attack on the Chinese Imperial camps in 1854. He was
the first executive head of the Maritime Customs, established in the same
year, his services being lent by his chief to start the new institution.
Attached to Lord Elgin in his two missions to China, he was appointed
secretary of Legation and Chinese secretary under Sir Frederick Bruce when
the Legation was installed in Peking.

Wheresoever Mr Wade's lot was cast he was beloved for his Irish geniality,
open-mindedness, and sincerity. He was the soul of honour, and was
possessed by the spirit of chivalry much beyond the common measure. His
best friends would never wish to forget his endearing infirmities of
temper, associated as they were with the generous _amende_ which never
failed to follow an over-hasty word. A well-read man, with a memory like
Macaulay's, a brilliant _raconteur_ and inimitable mimic, he was the
delight of every society. The services which he was enabled, by many
years of arduous labour, to render to succeeding generations of students
of Chinese are incalculable, and if his work begins now to be superseded
by that of others, this is but the common fate of pioneers in every
department of research.

Sir Thomas Wade's character may thus be fitly and fairly summed up in
the hackneyed epithet, "a scholar and a gentleman,"--but not therefore
a statesman. His mind was cast in another and a finer mould than befits
the political arena; and, unnatural as the inference may seem, it is
open to question whether his extensive knowledge of China was the best
qualification for dealing at first hand with current affairs, even in
that country. Profound researches into Chinese literature and philosophy
tend to overshadow and induce a distaste for the jarring questions of
the day. Seen through the luminous haze of its classic history, China
presents to the contemplative mind an object of reverence unlike any
other existing State, for the thread of its continuity since the time
before Abraham is unbroken. Grander than hewn stone or graven bronze, the
monuments of China are written books, and a living race, the heirs of all
her ages, to be conversed with and interrogated. The burden of such vast
homogeneous antiquity may well oppress the mere man of politics: he needs
a certain alloy of Philistinism and a limitation of view to enable him to
concentrate his attention on the exigencies of the passing hour.

  [Illustration: PRINCE KUNG.]

Relations which might be called intimate had been established between
the two Manchu statesmen, Prince Kung and Wênsiang, and the foreign
representatives. When these high personages were forced to assume
responsibility for international relations, they were not only unversed
in foreign affairs but untrained to any kind of business. The work of the
six Boards was carried on by expert secretaries, and the presidency of
one of them would have been no qualification for the new duty thrust upon
the emperor's Ministers of transacting business with foreign officials
standing on an equality with themselves. Their older colleague, Hangki,
had gained a little foreign knowledge by observation and hearsay while
filling the lucrative office of _hoppo_ at Canton; but the two younger men
mistrusted him, perhaps with reason, possibly from the suspicion naturally
aroused by his possession of superior knowledge. Prince Kung and Wênsiang
recognised that they had everything to learn, and they were apt and eager
scholars. Considering all the circumstances, it is indeed marvellous how
they adjusted themselves by innate tact to the novel position, and how
quickly they assimilated new knowledge. Many illuminating discussions were
carried on between them and the foreign representatives, who on their part
were no less desirous of imparting than the Chinese were of acquiring
information respecting the outer world. In these interesting symposia
Mr Wade naturally played the prominent part. On the enchanted ground of
Chinese history and literature, also, the interlocutors made endless
excursions together; and Chinese philosophy being directed to conduct
rather than speculation, it was possible to deduce from the teaching of
the sages authority for the adoption of almost any useful measure. Between
the modern innovator, therefore, though in foreign garb, and the ancient
moralists there was no such intellectual disagreement as sympathetic
explanations could not resolve.

It might have been justifiable to conclude that the Chinese were being
influenced for good by the well-meant counsels so copiously addressed to
them, were it not that the tutorial being so entirely incompatible with
the diplomatic function, no useful result could be expected from their
strained combination. It was as if one were to teach a novice the moves
in a game which the two were at the same time playing for serious stakes.

These interminable interviews and voluminous memoranda were wholly
unproductive, owing, no doubt, to the fact that the ideas of the parties
ran on parallel lines destined never to come to any point of fertile
contact. The burden of the cry of the Western people was "progress," a
word without equivalent in the language, and expressing an idea which
had no place in the conception of the Chinese. Incessant repetition
with varying illustrations were to the Chinese as flowers of rhetoric
wasted on a deaf man, and that simply because the basis of the Chinese
political thought lay at the opposite pole from that of the European.
On one occasion a distinguished American promoter was expatiating to the
governor of Formosa on the advantages of railway communication, his most
telling example being his own experience in being rushed along after an
early breakfast from his house in Albany to New York, where he spent the
day transacting important business and got wheeled back again to Albany
for dinner. The governor stopped him, and asked what in the name of
sanity possessed him to lead such a wearing life, as the last thing he
(the governor) would dream of doing would be to live a hundred miles from
his work. Though the earliest public advocate of railroads in China, the
governor regarded their utility from a far different point of view.

  [Illustration: WÊNSIANG.
   _From a photo by J. Thomson, Grosvenor Street, W._]

So eager were the foreigners for progress, which in their mind included
the regeneration of the Chinese empire and the development of its full
capacity for self-defence, that they were wont to rejoice over the
slightest indications of a beginning being made. Thus the mission of a man
of no standing as a secretary of the Tsungli-Yamên, who was sent to Europe
in 1866 to take observations, was hailed as the beginning of the new era,
and commended so warmly by the foreign Ministers to their Governments
that the emissary was received like the Queen of Sheba by King Solomon,
and shown--at least in Great Britain--everything that was admirable from
the Western point of view. He was as far, however, from appreciating the
triumph of science as was Cetewayo, the Zulu, whose admiration of England
focussed itself on the elephant "Jumbo" at the Zoological Gardens, or the
Scotswoman who, after being shown over the British Museum, had carried
away from it one impression, and that of the "graund mat" at the door.
The Chinese Government's appreciation of Western progress was by no means
increased by the mission of Pin, which rather indeed produced a contrary
effect. China soon began to put forth fresh claims to go her own way, her
own way being directly opposed to the kind of progress which was being
pressed upon her.

The Chinese in following the doctrines of the sages felt they were under
the guidance of Heaven, so that innovations appeared to them tainted with
impiety. So deeply did the worship of the past pervade their field of
thought, that when high officials ventured to introduce something new,
they usually endeavoured to disarm opposition by gilding their proposals
with well-selected texts from the classics.

II. FOREIGN LIFE IN PEKING.

    Social influence of the Alcock family--Sir Rutherford's relations
    with his staff--No social relations with natives--Manchu
    courtesy to English ladies--Community of foreigners sociable yet
    non-cohesive--Description of city--Foreign residency--Objects
    of interest--The streets--Mules--Camels--Mongol market--Fur
    sales--Absence of regulations--Street anecdotes--Summer
    residences.

By the end of 1865 the foreign life in Peking, official, social, and
private, had already settled into the grooves prescribed by local
conditions, within which it has, more or less, run ever since.

  [Illustration: MANCHU (TARTAR) WOMEN.]

Nevertheless, the advent of Sir Rutherford and Lady Alcock, with their
daughter, now Lady Pelly, introduced an element into the social atmosphere
of Peking which has afforded the happiest reminiscences to those who came
under its influence. We have seen that Sir Rutherford Alcock, by force of
character, conviction, and sense of duty, naturally assumed the lead among
his peers wherever he happened to be placed. A German resident in Peking
at the time we are speaking of says, "I remember very well that fine
English gentleman, who was conscious of representing the greatest country
of the world, and did it well." The official personality of the British
Minister could not be more truly depicted than in these simple words; but
this natural pre-eminence extended far beyond the official sphere, and
made itself felt for the general good in the common relations of life.
His dealings with subordinates were marked by thoroughgoing loyalty; his
rule was to give his confidence without reserve to those who merited
it, to support and defend them in the discharge of their duty. He was
accessible, always ready to listen to the opinions even of his juniors,
and though exacting as regards work, he never spared himself, but set an
example of industry to those who served under him. He possessed that rare
faculty of appreciation which enables a man to command services which no
money could buy. The survivors of his staff to this day speak of him in
affectionate terms as the best of chiefs. In business he was strictly,
perhaps even rigidly, formal, and his manner was intolerant of laxity in
others. When the official crust was put off like a suit of armour, the
genial depths of his nature were reached, but the number of those who
enjoyed this experience seems never to have been large. Select, but few,
were the friends of his bosom.

The foreign residents in Peking did not number many, and, with the
exception of the Legations, were rather widely scattered over a city of
vast distances. The original community consisted of about sixty persons,
distributed over the four Legations, the customs' staff, and missionary
establishments. It was a community of young men "about twenty-four years
of age," eminently social, no member being a stranger to the rest, and all
living in friendly intercourse. The Legations may almost be said to have
sat with open doors, so easy were their interchanges of informal visits.
During the time of Sir Rutherford and Lady Alcock their hospitalities
rendered the British Legation the chief centre of social interest, while
the unaffected kindness which inspired these courtesies endeared its
inmates to all their fellow-residents. That, indeed, was the golden age of
the British Legation, and, it may be added, of the general social life of
the Chinese capital, a period when life-long friendships were formed. The
time had not yet come for international rivalries to mar the cordiality
of personal intercourse. Indeed in the convivialities of Peking national
distinctions were absolutely lost, and so to a great extent were the
distinctions of rank. On the racecourse, which was early instituted, as
in the billiard-room, picnic excursions, and the like, all were free and
all were equal.

  [Illustration: MANCHU WOMEN.]

When we speak of the "social" life of Peking, it must be understood as
referring exclusively to that of the foreign residents among themselves,
for between them and the natives there was no such intimacy. But in those
early days the high Chinese officials seemed to have been more genial than
those of a later epoch. In the winter of 1860-61, for example, Hangki,
formerly _hoppo_ of Canton, was in the habit of receiving Mr Adkins
familiarly at his private residence,--a practice which was afterwards
gradually discontinued. The arrival of the two ladies at the British
Legation was the signal for a display of courtesy by the Manchu Ministers,
who from time to time sent them seasonable presents of plants, flowers,
and other things, thus establishing agreeable personal relations with the
Minister. That the advent of ladies to the Legations should have evoked
the natural politeness of the high officials need not be a matter for
wonder if it be remembered that the Chinese contempt for women is not
shared by the Manchus. It is well known that their women are free from
most of the trammels which contract the lives of their Chinese sisters.
Their unbound feet symbolise liberty of locomotion generally, and they
show themselves unveiled and unabashed in public thoroughfares. They have
the coquetries common to the sex, among which may be reckoned a passion
for floral decoration of the head, and the universal practice of painting
the face and lips. This is done in a thoroughgoing manner, and as if the
paint were "laid on with a trowel," leaving a sharply defined margin on
cheek and neck between the pink and white and the sallow ground on which
the colour is overlaid, giving it the appearance of a mask which might
be easily removed. Even young children are subjected to the cosmetic
treatment; and the very aged do not discard the artificial flowers in the
remnant of their hair. As the fairest Chinese have no such natural colour
as is thus imitated, it is rather difficult to divine whence they derived
the notion of an ideal human skin.

It is not to be wondered at that the first European girls who appeared in
Peking should have excited some curiosity. One young lady, probably the
first arrival, whose fresh and fair complexion suggested the acme of the
cosmetic art, excited intense interest among the Mongol and Manchu ladies.
On one occasion she was met in the street by a great princess, who was
so struck by her appearance that she stopped her _cortège_, alighted from
her cart, and stood before the English girl and gently rubbed her cheeks
to find out, as she naively said, how the colour was put on!

The foreign residents at Peking, happy as their circumstances were,
lacked some of the principal elements of a community properly so called.
They had, in fact, little in common besides their æsthetic culture and
their Christian civilisation, the literature, philosophy, and the social
tenets of the West. They had no head, no centre, no neutral meeting-ground
even except the racecourse and the open fields, and were thus always
either hosts or guests to each other. The assumed identity of their high
political interests gave an appearance of solidarity to the diplomatic
section; but the fusion of the other elements in the society was far
from complete, and, in short, outside of the region of recreation and
conviviality the residents could not be said to be animated by any
unifying purpose, nor to have any communal existence. Individual isolation
prevented the aggregate from attaining collective force.

  [Illustration: CHINESE WOMEN.]

These sterilising conditions were aggravated by another feature of
the situation which had an important bearing on social life. Peking
was one of the most inaccessible capitals in the world. The great
tourist-stream passed it by. It stirred no human emotion unless it
were languid aversion or inarticulate curiosity. The dilettante element
which has ventilated Japan so well and kept her in constant touch with
cosmopolitan life-currents has been absent in Northern China. Peking with
its particular concerns has been thus permitted to lie secluded from the
world, neither generating fruitful ideas nor inviting or profiting by
their importation from without; nor, in short, making itself intelligible
or interesting to mankind other than as an archaic curiosity. China, with
its immense wealth and resources, weighed less in the consideration of the
nations than the petty kingdom of Greece or the deadly swamps of Africa.
Considerations of that kind help to explain the bewilderment with which
the action of these neglected forces has been received during the past few
years, and the disarray of the organs of European opinion when suddenly
called on to deal with the phenomenon of Peking as a daily "headline."

Of the city itself it may be noted that it is magnificently laid out
within high and massive walls, the gates and corners surmounted by
bastions and imposing towers pierced with three tiers of gun-ports. The
main streets are straight and extravagantly wide. Spaciousness is the
dominant expression of the whole--the back-yard is a feature of the
meanest one-storeyed hovels. It has not occurred to the Pekingese to
economise earth-space by vertical architecture ground-ward or sky-ward.
Viewed from an elevation, the city has the appearance of a vast park:
the tree-foliage seen in perspective seems to cover the whole area, only
picked out by yellow and green roofs of imperial and other conspicuous
buildings. The palace, a city in itself of 10,000 inhabitants, occupies
an immense _enclave_ symmetrically placed in the centre of the whole.

From such a coign of vantage as the high wall affords, Peking presents
at once an impressive and a pleasing spectacle. It gives the distance
necessary to lend enchantment to the view. The soothing hum of a great
population; the sweetness of an atmosphere untainted, if it be summer,
or spiced by the aromatic herbs which grow promiscuously between the
interstices of the bricks, if it be autumn,--enfolds the scene in that
kind of soft drapery which memory throws over common things long past. One
lingers, loth to renew a closer acquaintance with the crowd below, which
no longer hums but utters wild discordant cries,--with the horrors of the
streets, which are of the earth, earthy. The area contained between the
rectilinear arteries of the city is dismally laid out on the plan of the
rabbit-warren. These wide streets are alternately deep mire and deep dust
at the best, but at the worst, receptacles of indescribable abominations.
The witty and wise Bishop Favier, when describing these to a friend in
France, was asked, How could a population living in such insanitary
conditions resist a visitation of cholera. "Cholera!" exclaimed the
Father; "it could never enter. It would be asphyxiated at the gate!"[12]

The dust is acrid to nose and eyes, from the dessicated refuse of
generations, for the streets are watered by long scoops from standing
pools of sewage which overflow in the summer rains and obliterate the
roadway, so that animals harnessed between shafts not unfrequently meet
with a cruel death by drowning in these fœtid thoroughfares.

  [Illustration: CHINESE STREET SCENE DURING RAINY SEASON.]

Such hints as these will be sufficient to suggest to the least imaginative
that peculiar unattractiveness of the Peking streets which has been
a determining factor in the habits of the foreign residents. Life
would be intolerable to Western folks if it were not removed from the
sights, noises, and odours of the streets; and fortunately the ruling
local principle of spaciousness lends itself to the solution without
running counter to any native practice or prejudice. The Legations, the
customs, and the missionaries are in their various degrees established
in "compounds" large enough to accommodate the members of their staffs
in separate buildings with ample elbow-room, as in an Indian cantonment,
interspaced with trees and sometimes gardens, the whole surrounded by a
high wall and capable of defence. These seductive oases in a wilderness of
garbage, in a city of great distances, naturally conduce to stay-at-home
habits and to segregation, which it requires some energy to overcome.

Nor is Peking life wanting in more mundane compensations. The city itself
contains many "objects of interest," which in the earlier years of foreign
intercourse were open to the curious. The well-known "Lama temple,"
reputed to contain 2000 inmates, which has for many years been dangerous
to enter, was in those days a much-frequented resort, where the stranger
was welcome to go over the establishment and listen to the Buddhist
litanies: a certain bass voice, or perhaps a succession of bass voices, in
the choir, indeed, attained celebrity among foreigners. In the refectory
of that monastery one was obliged, out of respect, to eat, or feign to
eat, the unmitigated fat of the sheep's tail, fished from out the broth,
not with a hook, as was the custom in the Jewish Church, but by the deft
fingers of the chief lama. Now, on the contrary, the foreigner who enters
the gate is hustled, robbed, and stoned. This great change in the attitude
of the lamas has never been satisfactorily explained, but it is presumed
that the manners and customs of some of the visitors to the temple may
have had something to do with it. There have been visitors who, with the
keen acquisitiveness of the world-tourist, have slipped small "josses"
into their pockets out of what, perhaps, appeared to them the superfluous
number of molten images ranged round the shelves of the great Buddha's
sanctuary.

The Temple of Heaven, too, that grand altar to the Living God, standing