Hildreth's "Japan as It Was and Is": A Handbook of Old Japan, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Richard Hildreth

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Omitted in this edition.—Edr.

[2] Omitted in this edition.—Edr.

[3] The true distance is about five hundred miles; but, possibly, by miles Marco Polo may have intended Chinese li, of which there are nearly three in our mile.

[4] A name applied to part of China, south of the Hoang-ho, held by the Sung Dynasty till A. D. 1276.—K. M.

[5] Marsden, the English translator and annotator of Marco Polo, supposes that Zaitun was the modern Amoy, and Kinsai either Ningpo or Chusan. The Chinese annalists, on the other hand, seem to make the expedition start from Corea, which is much more probable, as that province is separated from Japan by a strait of only about a hundred miles in breadth. It was by this Corean strait that, three hundred years later, the Japanese retorted this invasion.

[6] Marsden remarks upon this date as evidently wrong. Indeed, it is given quite differently in different early editions of the travels. Marsden thinks it should be 1281. This is the date assigned to the invasion by the Chinese books. The older Japanese annals place it in 1284. In the chapter of Marco Polo which follows the one above quoted, and which is mainly devoted to the islands of southeastern Asia, he seems to ascribe to the Japanese the custom of eating their prisoners of war—a mistake which, as his English translator and commentator observes, might easily arise from transferring to them what he had heard of the savage inhabitants of some of the more southern islands.

The Mongol invasion took place in the fourth year of Kōan [A. D. 1281].—K. M.

[7] As this chronicle, which is the oldest Japanese history, is stated to have been originally published A. D. 720, it must be from a continuation of it that Siebold, or rather his assistant, Hoffman, translates.

[A translation by W. G. Aston is published by the Japan Society, London.—Edr.]

[8] This is the equivalent, it is to be supposed, of the Japanese date mentioned in the chronicle.

[9] Hildreth is here too skeptical. All the events mentioned in the text really took place between A. D. 1268 and 1281.—K. M.

[10] Galvano’s book in the translation, published by Hackluyt, in 1601, may be found in the supplement to Hackluyt’s collection of voyages, London, 1811. The original work was printed by the pious care of Francis de Sousa Tauares, to whom Galvano left it, on his death-bed.

[11] See Appendix, Note D.

[12] A Portuguese coin, as corresponding to which in value the Spanish translator of Pinto gives ducats, which, of silver, were about equal to a dollar of our money.

[13] This Portuguese colony was of no long continuance. It was soon broken up by the Chinese, as Pinto intimates, through the folly of the Portuguese residents.

[14] It is difficult to understand by what mistake Charlevoix, in his “Histoire du Japan,” ascribes this discovery to the same year, 1542, as that of the three Portuguese mentioned by Galvano. Pinto’s chronology is rather confused, but it is impossible to fix this voyage to Japan earlier than 1545.

[15] Probably a corruption of Tenjikujin, or the people of Tenjiku (India).—Edr.

[16] The terms Chengecu and Chenghequu are represented in two letters, one dated in 1651 (“Selectarum Epistolarum ex India,” Lib. i.), addressed to Xavier by a companion of his; the other, dated in 1560, and written by Lawrence, a converted Japanese and a Jesuit (Ibid., Lib. ii), as commonly employed in Japan to designate Europe.

Golownin mentions that at the time of his imprisonment (1812) he found a prophecy in circulation among the Japanese that they should be conquered by a people from the north. Possibly both these prophecies—that mentioned by Pinto and that by Golownin—might be a little colored by the patriotic hopes of the European relaters.

[17] A tael is about an ounce and a third English. The tael is divided into ten mas; the mas into ten kandarins; the kandarin into ten kas; and these denominations (the silver passing by weight) are in general use throughout the far East. Sixteen taels make a katty (about a pound and a third avoirdupois), and one hundred katties a picul,—these being the mercantile weights in common use.

[18] See Appendix, Note C.

[19] The kingdom or province of Bungo is situated on the east coast of the second in size and southernmost in situation of the three larger Japanese islands, off the southeast extremity of which lies the small island of Tanegashima, where Pinto represents himself as having first landed.

The name “Bungo” was frequently extended by the Portuguese to the whole large island of which it formed a part, though among them the more common designation of that island, after they knew it to be such (for they seem at first to have considered it a part of Nippon), was Shimo.[A] This name, Shimo, appears to have been only a modification of the term shima (or, as the Portuguese wrote it, xima), the Japanese word for island, and as such terminating many names of places. On our maps this island is called Kiūshiū, meaning, as Kämpfer tells us, “Country of Nine,” from the circumstance of its being divided into nine provinces, which latter appears to be the correct interpretation. There are in use in Japan Chinese as well as Japanese names of provinces and officers (the Chinese probably a translation of the Japanese); and not only the names Nippon and Kiūshiū, but that of Bungo (to judge from the terminal n of the first syllable), are of Chinese origin.

[20] The Japanese date by the years of the reign of the Dairi, or Mikado (of whom more hereafter), and they also, for ordinary purposes, employ the Chinese device of nengō. These are periods, or eras, of arbitrary length, from one year to many, appointed at the pleasure of the reigning Dairi, named by him, and lasting till the establishment of a new nengō. For convenience, every new nengō, and also every new reign, begins chronologically with the new year, the old nengō and old reign being protracted to the end of the year in which it closes. [See Notes G and H in Appendix.—Edr.]

The Japanese month is alternately twenty-nine and thirty days, of which every year has twelve, with a repetition of one of the months, in seven years out of every nineteen, so as to bring this reckoning by lunar months into correspondency with the course of the earth round the sun; this method being based on a knowledge of the correspondency of two hundred and thirty-five lunations with nineteen solar years. According to Titsingh, every thirty-third month is repeated, so as to make up the necessary number of intercalary months, the number of days in these intercalary months being fixed by the almanacs issued at Miyako. The commencement of the Japanese year is generally in February. The months are divided into two distinct portions, of fifteen days, each having a distinct name, and the first day of each of which serves as a Sunday, or holiday. This regulation of the Japanese calendar is borrowed from the Chinese, as also the use of the period of sixty years corresponding to our century. [See also paper on “Japanese Calendars,” in vol. xxx of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.]

[21] No such province is mentioned in the lists of Japanese provinces by Father Rodriguez, Kämpfer, and Klaproth. [Name of a bay.—Edr.]

[22] Regarding the portrait of the Portuguese, we know not on what authority Siebold based his statement.—K. M.

[23] “They wished to have our portraits taken at full length, and Teisuke, who knew how to draw, was appointed to execute them. He drew them in India ink, but in such a style that each portrait would have passed for that of any other individual as well as of him it was intended for. Except the long beard, we could trace no resemblance in them. The Japanese, however, sent them to the capital, where they were probably hung up in some of their galleries of pictures.”—Golownin’s “Captivity in Japan,” vol. i, ch. 4.

[24] In the Latin version of the Jesuit letters he is called Cosmus Turrianus.

[25] Nippon is the name of the whole country; Kondo, of the main island.—Edr.

[26] It appears from Golownin that there are also smaller packages, of which three make the large one. The price of rice varied, of course; but Kämpfer gives five or six taels of silver as the average value of the koku. Titsingh represents the koku as corresponding to the gold koban, the national coin of the Japanese. The original koban weighed forty-seven kandarins, or rather more than our eagle; but till the year 1672 it passed in Japan as equivalent to about six taels of silver. The present koban contains only half as much gold; and yet, as compared with silver, is rated still higher. The koban is figured by Kämpfer as an oblong coin rounded at the ends, the surface, on one side, marked with four rows of indented lines, and bearing at each end the arms or symbol of the Dairi, and between them a mark showing the value, and the signature of the master of the mint. The other side was smooth, and had only the stamp of the inspector-general of gold and silver money. Kämpfer also figures the ōban, which even in his time had become very rare, similar to the koban, but of ten times the weight and value. A third gold coin was the ichibu, figured by Kämpfer as an oblong square. According to Thunburg, it was of the value of a quarter of the koban. Silver passed by weight. The Japanese do not appear to have had any silver coins, unless lumps of irregular shape and weight, but bearing certain marks and stamps, were to be so considered. In ordinary retail transactions copper zeni, or kas, as the Chinese name was, were employed. They were round, with a square hole in the middle, by which they were strung. Some were of double size and value, and some of iron. For further information on the Japanese monetary system, and on the present state and value of the Japanese circulating medium, see Chapters XXV, XXXVIII, and XLV.

[27] Dairi, in its original sense, is said by Rodriguez, in his Japanese grammar, to signify rather the court than the person of the theocratic chief to whom it is applied; and so of most of the titles mentioned in the text.

[28] According to Rodriguez, there had been also an ancient military nobility, called buke; but in the course of the civil wars many families of it had become extinct, while other humble families, who had risen by way of arms, mostly formed the existing nobility.

[29] According to the Japanese historical legends, the office of Kubō-Sama, originally limited to the infliction of punishments and the suppression of crimes, was shared, for many ages, between the two families of Genji and Heiji, till about 1180, when a civil war broke out between these families, and the latter, having triumphed, assumed such power that the Dairi commissioned Yoritomo, a member of the defeated family of Genji, to inflict punishment upon him. Yoritomo renewed the war, killed Heiji, and was himself appointed Kubō-Sama, but ended with usurping a greater power than any of his predecessors.

[30] See Satow’s papers on “Pure Shintō” and “Japanese Rituals,” in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.

[31] The word Kami is also doubly used as a title of honor conferred with the sanction of the Dairi, somewhat equivalent, says Kämpfer, in one case, to the European title of chevalier, and in the other, to that of count. Golownin insists that it implies something spiritual.

[32] The Sun-Goddess, also called Ama-terasu-no-Mikoto.—Edr.

[33] The following system of Japanese cosmogony is given by Klaproth, as contained in an imperfect volume of Chinese and Japanese chronology, printed in Japan, in Chinese characters, without date, but which for more than a hundred years past has been in the Royal Library of Paris: “At first the heaven and the earth were not separated, the perfect principle and the imperfect principle were not disjoined; chaos, under the form of an egg, contained the breath [of life], self-produced, including the germs of all things. Then what was pure and perfect ascended upwards, and formed the heavens (or sky), while what was dense and impure coagulated, was precipitated, and produced the earth. The pure and excellent principles formed whatever is light, whilst whatever was dense and impure descended by its own gravity; consequently the sky was formed prior to the earth. After their completion, a divine being (Kami) was born in the midst of them. Hence, it has been said, that at the reduction of chaos, an island of soft earth emerged, as a fish swims upon the water. At this period a thing resembling a shoot of the plant ashi [Eryanthus Japonicus] was produced between the heavens and the earth. This shoot was metamorphosed and became the god [first of the seven superior gods] who bears the honorific title of Kuni-toko-dachi-no-mikoto, that is to say, the venerable one who constantly supports the empire.”

[34] In reading the accounts of the bonzes, and of the delusions which they practised on the people, contained in the letters of the Catholic missionaries, and the denunciations levelled against them in consequence, in those letters, one might almost suppose himself to be reading a Protestant sermon against Popery, or an indignant leader against the papists in an evangelical newspaper. The missionaries found, however, at least they say so, among other theological absurdities maintained by the bonzes, a number of the “damnable Lutheran tenets.”

[35] Buddha, or the sage (which the Chinese, by the metamorphosis made by their pronunciation of most foreign proper names, have changed first into Fuh-hi, and then into Fuh, or Ho), is not the personal name of the great saint, the first preacher of the religion of the Buddhists, but a title of honor given to him after he had attained to eminent sanctity. According to the concurrent traditions of the Buddhists in various parts of Asia, he was the son of a king of central India, Suddho-dana, meaning in Sanscrit pure-eating king, or eater of pure food, which the Chinese have translated into their language by Zung-fung-wang. His original name was Lêh-ta; after he became a priest he was called Sakia-mouni, that is, devotee of the race of Sakia, whence the appellation Shaka, by which he is commonly known in Japan, and also the name Shaku, applied to the patriarch or head of the Buddhist church. Another Sanscrit patronymic of Buddha is Gautama, which in different Buddhist nations has, in conjunction with other epithets applied to him, been variously changed and corrupted. Thus among the Siamese he is called Summana-kodom.

The Buddhist mythology includes several Buddhas who preceded Sakia-mouni, and the first of whom, Adi-Buddha, or the first Buddha, was, when nothing else was, being in fact the primal deity and origin of all things. It seems to be this first Buddha who is worshipped in Japan under the name of Amida, and whose priests form the most numerous and influential of the Buddhist orders. Siebold seems inclined to regard them as pure monotheists.

The birth of Shaka is fixed by the Japanese annalists, or at least by the book of chronology quoted in a previous note, in the twenty-sixth year of the emperor Chaou-wang, of the Chinese Chew Dynasty, 1027 B. C. 1006 B. C., he fled from his father’s house to become a priest; 998 B. C., he reached the highest step of philosophical knowledge; 949 B. C., being seventy-nine years of age, he entered into Nirvana, that is, died. He was succeeded by a regular succession of Buddhist patriarchs, of whom twenty-eight were natives of Hindustan. The twenty-eighth emigrated to China, A. D. 490, where he had five Chinese successors. Under the second of these, A. D. 552, Buddhism was introduced into Japan. A. D. 713, the sixth and the last Chinese patriarch died, since which the Chinese Buddhists, and those who have received the religion from them, seem not to have acknowledged any general, but only a local, head in each country.

[36] In connection with this chapter, read “The Religions of Japan” (Griffis).—Edr.

[37] For an account of the Japanese language, literature, etc., see “A Handbook of Modern Japan” (Clement).—Edr.

[38] “All military men, the servants of the Shōgun, and persons holding civil offices under the government, are bound, when they have committed any crime, to rip themselves up, but not till they have received an order from the court to that effect; for, if they were to anticipate this order, their heirs would run the risk of being deprived of their places and property. For this reason all the officers of government are provided, in addition to their usual dress, and that which they put on in the case of fire, with a suit necessary on such occasions, which they carry with them whenever they travel from home. It consists of a white robe and a habit of ceremony, made of hempen cloth, and without armorial bearings.

“As soon as the order of the court has been communicated to the culprit, he invites his intimate friends for the appointed day, and regales them with sake. After they have drank together some time, he takes leave of them, and the order of the court is then read to him once more. The person who performs the principal part of this tragic scene then addresses a speech or compliment to the company, after which he inclines his head towards the floor, draws his sabre, and cuts himself with it across the belly, penetrating to the bowels. One of his confidential servants, who takes his place behind him, then strikes off his head. Such as wish to display superior courage, after the cross-cut, inflict a second longitudinally, and then a third in the throat. No disgrace attaches to such a death, and the son succeeds to his father’s place.

“When a person is conscious of having committed some crime, and apprehensive of being thereby disgraced, he puts an end to his own life, to spare his family the ruinous consequences of judicial proceedings. This practice is so common that scarcely any notice is taken of such an event. The sons of all persons of quality exercise themselves in their youth, for five or six years, with a view that they may perform the operation, in case of need, with gracefulness and dexterity; and they take as much pains to acquire this accomplishment, as youth among us to become elegant dancers or skilful horsemen; hence the profound contempt of death which they imbibe in their earliest years. This disregard of death, which they prefer to the slightest disgrace, extends to the very lowest classes among the Japanese.”—Titsingh, “Illustrations of Japan,” p. 147.

[39] His family name was Ōtomo, and his given name was Yoshishige.—Edr.

[40] Pinto gives a long account of this dispute, which has been substantially adopted by Lucina, the Portuguese biographer of Xavier, whose life of the saint was published in 1600, and who, in composing it, had the use of Pinto’s yet unpublished manuscript. Tursellini’s Latin biography of Xavier was published at Rome and Antwerp, 1596. From these was compiled the French life, by Bouhours, which our Dryden translated. Tursellini published also four books of Xavier’s epistles, translated into Latin. Eight books of new epistles afterwards appeared. Charlevoix remarks of them, “that they are memoirs, of which it is not allowable to question the sincerity, but which furnish very little for history, which was not the writer’s object.” They are chiefly homilies.

[41] See Satow’s paper in vol. vii of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.

[42] For some further remarks on Pinto and his book, see Appendix, Note D.

[43] Of Father de Torres we have four letters rendered into Latin, and of Vilela, in the same collections, seven, giving, among other things, a pretty full account of his visit to and residence at Miyako. For the description, however, of that capital, and the road to it, I prefer to rely on lay travellers, of whose observations, during a series of visits extending through more than two centuries, a full abstract will be found in subsequent chapters.

[44] The following passage, from Titsingh’s “Memoirs of the Shōguns,” may serve to shed some light upon the civil war raging in Japan when first visited by the Portuguese, and which continued down to the time of Nobunaga: “Takauji was of the family of Yoshiiye, who was descended from Seiwa-tennō, the fifty-sixth Dairi. He divided the supreme power between his two sons, Yoshi-nori and Motouji, giving to each the government of thirty-three provinces. The latter, who ruled over the eastern part, was styled Kamakura-no-Shōgun, and kept his court at Kamakura, in the province of Sagami. Yoshi-nori, to whom were allotted the western provinces, resided at Miyako, with the title of Fuku-Shōgun.

“Takauji, in dividing the empire between his two sons, was influenced by the expectation that, in case either of them should be attacked, his brother would afford him assistance. This partition, on the contrary, only served to arm them one against the other; the country was involved in continual war, and the princes, though brothers, were engaged in frequent hostilities, which terminated only with the destruction of the branch of Miyako.”

[45] See note on page 84.

[46] For a particular description of the dress of Japanese, see Chap. XLI.

[47] His reception of the Japanese and his reformation of the calendar are both recorded together in his epitaph.

[48] The Letters, Briefs, and the Discourse on Obedience, above quoted, may be found at length in Latin, in the very valuable and rich collection, De Rebus Japonicis Indicis and Peruvianis Epistolæ Recentiores, edited by John Hay, of Dalgetty, a Scotch Jesuit, and a sharp controversialist, published in 1605; in Spanish, in Father Luys de Gusman’s Historia de los Missiones, que han hecho los Religioses de la Compania de Jesus, etc., published in 1601, of which the larger part is devoted to the Japanese mission; in Italian, in Father Daniel Batoli’s “Historia de la Compagnia de Gesu”; and in French, in Charlevoix’s “Histoire du Japon.” An Italian history of the mission was printed at Rome, 1585,—the same, I suppose, of which a Latin translation is given in Hay’s collection; and still rarer and more valuable one at Macao, in 1590, of which a further account will be found in a note at the end of the next chapter.

[49] The princes and nobles of Japan, and indeed most private individuals, have certain devices embroidered on their gowns, etc., which the Portuguese and the missionaries compared to the armorial bearings of Europe. [See paper on “Japanese Heraldry” in vol. v of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.]

[50] During this residence at Macao the Japanese ambassadors were not idle. They were engaged upon a very remarkable work, printed at Macao in 1590 in Japanese and Latin, purporting to be composed by the ambassadors, and giving, by way of dialogue, an account not only of the embassy, but of Japan and of all the countries, European and Oriental, which they had visited. The Latin title is De Missione Legatorum Japonensium ad Romanam curiam, rebusque in Europa ac toto in itinere animadversis, Dialogus, etc.—“A Dialogue concerning the Japanese Embassy to the Court of Rome, and the things observed in Europe and on the whole journey, collected from the journal of the ambassadors, and rendered into Latin by Ed. de Laude, priest of the Society of Jesus.” It is from this work, though he does not give the title of it, that Hackluyt extracted the “Excellent Treatise of the Kingdom of China and of the Estate and Government thereof,” contained in his second volume, and of which he speaks in his epistle dedicatory to that volume, first published in 1599, as “the most exact account of those parts that is yet come to light.” “It was printed,” he tells us, “in Latin, in Makoa, a city of China, in China paper, in the year 1590, and was intercepted in the great carac Madre de Dios, two years after, enclosed in a case of sweet cedar wood, and lapped up almost a hundred fold in fine Calicut cloth, as though it had been some incomparable jewel.”

[51] This letter, with the reply in the next chapter, is given by Froez, from whom Gusman has copied them.

[52] Letters from the ambassadors to Sixtus V, written at Nagasaki after their arrival there, and giving an account of their voyage home, may be found in Hay’s collection.

[53] Valignani was not the first European to obtain an imperial audience. The same favor had been granted, as already mentioned, by Yoshiteru to Father Vilela in 1559. Louis Froez had also been admitted, in 1565, to an audience of the same emperor, of which he has given a short but interesting account.

[54] See Satow’s paper on “The Origin of Spanish and Portuguese Rivalry in Japan,” in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.

[55] We regret that the original of this letter has been lost, and we cannot, therefore, compare the translation with the original. But, at any rate, the date here given is erroneous. Valignani’s departure from Japan being in 1592, as is mentioned at the end of the next chapter, this letter must have been written in 1592 (first year of Bunroku).—K. M.

[56] The number of troops here set down is too small.—K. M.

[57] According to the letters of Louis Froez, the prince of Ōmura joined the army against Corea with one thousand men, the king of Arima with two thousand, and the king of Bungo with ten thousand, besides mariners and mean people to carry the baggage. The entire number of men-at-arms in the empire, at this time, is stated to have been, by a written catalogue, three hundred thousand. The victories mentioned in the text were gained by an advanced body of fifteen thousand men. The Coreans are described by Froez as different from the Chinese in race and language, and superior to them in personal prowess, yet as in a manner tributary to China, whose laws, customs, and arts they had borrowed. They are represented as good bowmen, but scantily provided with other weapons, and therefore not able to encounter the cannon, lances, and swords of the Japanese, who had been, beside, practised by continual wars among themselves. But in nautical affairs Froez reckons the Chinese and Coreans as decidedly superior to the Japanese. Translations from several Jesuit letters relating to the Corean war will be found in Hackluyt, vol. iv, near the end. Siebold, relying upon Japanese authorities, insists that it was through Corea that the arts, knowledge, language, and written characters of China were introduced into Japan.

[58] See Aston’s papers on “Hideyoshi’s Invasion of Korea,” in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.

[59] Yet Taikō-Sama was not in general cruel. A curious letter of Father Organtino Brixiano, written in 1594, enumerates, among the reasons of Taikō’s great success, his clemency to the conquered princes, whom he never put to death after having once promised them their lives, and to whom he granted a revenue, small, but sufficient to maintain them, and which served to keep them quiet. Another reason was his having established for his soldiers during war a commissariat, of which he paid the expense, by which they were rendered much more efficient. He also kept them employed, for, besides the army maintained in Corea, he set them to work in building or repairing palaces and fortresses, or in other public works. At this time he had thirty thousand men at work upon one castle near Miyako, one hundred thousand at Fushimi. He also broke the power of the princes by transferring them to distant parts, while he inspired general respect by his strict justice, from which he was swerved by no considerations of relationship, family, or influence, secular or religious. Another reason mentioned by the missionary does not correspond so well with Taikō’s letter to the viceroy of Goa. He is said not only to have disarmed the country people, by whose strength and wealth the petty kingdoms had been sustained, but also to have reduced them to extreme poverty; but this, perhaps, applies rather to the petty lords than to the actual cultivators. This letter is in Hay’s collection, and a part of it, in English, may be found in Hackluyt’s fourth volume.

[Dening’s “New Life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi” is the best work dealing with the career of “the Napoleon of Japan.”—Edr.]

[60] Some curious information respecting the Philippines is contained in a letter dated Mexico, 1590, intercepted on its way to Spain by some English cruiser, and translated and published by Hackluyt in his fourth volume. This letter represents the country as very unhealthy “for us Spaniards,” of whom not more than one thousand were left alive out of fourteen thousand who had gone there in the twenty years preceding. It seems, too, that the Spaniards at Manila, not less than the Portuguese at Macao, had succeeded in opening a trade with China. “There is a place in China, which is an harbor called Macaran, which the king has given to the Spaniards freely; which shall be the place where the ships shall come to traffic. For in this harbor there is a great river, which goeth up into the main land, unto divers towns and cities, which are near to this river.” Where was this Spanish Chinese port?

The annual galleons to New Spain were to Manila what the annual carac to Japan was to Macao,—a main support of the place. The privilege of putting a certain amount of goods on board was distributed among all the resident merchants, offices, and public institutions.

[61] That any Japanese had been in America earlier than 1610 A. D. is not to be found in any Japanese sources.—K. M.

[62] The fathers resident at this college had been by no means idle. They had printed there, in 1593, a Japanese grammar, prepared by Father Alvarez, and, in 1595, in a thick quarto of upwards of nine hundred pages, a Portuguese, Latin, and Japanese Lexicon. A vocabulary entirely Japanese was printed at Nagasaki, 1598.

[63] Yet the Japanese are said to maintain to this day a garrison on the coast (Golownin, vol. iii, ch. 9), and to receive tribute from Corea; but this seems doubtful.

[64] Go-kirai, including Yamashiro, Yamato, Kawachi, Izumi, and Settsu.—Edr.

[65] Father Valignani died in 1606, at Macao, whither he had gone to look after the Chinese missions, a few Jesuits having at length got admission into that empire. Father Rodriguez, in his annual letter of 1606, from Miyako, in noticing Valignani’s death, speaks of him as justly entitled to be called the apostle of the missions of Japan and China,—a title, indeed, which he had already received from the king of Portugal. Purchas, who published a few years later, mentions him as the “great Jesuit.” He enjoyed in his own day, and deservedly, a reputation quite equal to that of our most famous modern missionaries; but these missionary reputations are apt not to be very long-lived. Five of his letters are in the collection of Hay, “De Rebus Japonicis,” etc.

The death of Father Louis Froez has been mentioned in the previous chapter. We have of his letters, in Maffei’s “Select Epistles,” nine, written between the years 1563 and 1573; and in Hay’s collection, eight, written between 1577 and 1596. Many of these are of great length. That of February, 1565, contains a curious account of what he saw at Miyako, on his going thither with Almeida to aid Vilela, who had labored there alone for six years with only Japanese assistants. The translation of it in Hackluyt has an important passage in the beginning, giving a general account of the Japanese, not in the Latin editions that I have seen. Those in Hay’s collection are rather reports than letters. That of 1586 contains an account of Valignani’s first interview with Taikō-Sama, that of 1592 a full account of Valignani’s embassy, the second of 1595 the history of Taikō-Sama’s quarrel with his nephew, and the two of 1596 a full account of the first martyrdoms and of the state of the church at the time.

Almeida had died in 1583, after a missionary life of twenty-eight years. We have five of his letters, which show him a good man, but exceedingly credulous, even for a Portuguese Jesuit.

[66] This chapter, also the twenty-second, is taken, with alterations and additions, from an article (written by the compiler of this work) in “Harper’s Magazine” for January, 1854.

[67] See Appendix, Note E.

[68] An account of Adams’ voyage, in two letters of his from Japan, may be found in Purchas, “His Pilgrimes,” part i, book iii, sect. 5. Purchas also gives, book ii, chap. v, Captain Wert’s adventures and return; and in book iii, chap. i, sect. 4, a narrative by Davis, who acted as chief pilot of the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, under Houtman. Hackluyt gives, in his second volume, a narrative of Lancaster’s voyage, taken down from the mouth of Edmund Baker, Lancaster’s lieutenant. Henry May’s narrative of the same voyage is given in Hackluyt’s second volume. What is known of the English expedition, fitted out in 1594, will be found in Hackluyt, vol. iv, and “Pilgrimes,” book iii, chap. i, sect. 2. The English East India Company was formed in 1600, and Lancaster was immediately despatched on a second voyage “with four tall ships and a victualler,” and by him the English trade was commenced.—Pilgrimes, book iii, chap. iii, sect. 1. [Ten extant letters of Will Adams may be found in “Letters written by the English Residents in Japan,” edited by K. Murakawn, and published in Tōkyō. See also paper by Dr. L. Riess on the “History of the English Factory at Kirado,” in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.]

[69] See Klaproth’s translation (“Nov. Journal Asiatique,” tom. ii), of a curious Japanese tract on the Wealth of Japan, written in 1708.

See note on page 152.—Edr.

[70] This letter is given by Purchas, vol. i, p. 406. It has neither date nor signature, nor does it appear who is responsible for the correctness of the translation.

[71] It must have been in the next year (1609).—K. M.

[72] Most likely this “box” was formed by movable screens. See Chapter XXXVIII.

[73] Iyeyasu was sixty-six years old in 1609.—K. M.

[74] It is customary among the Japanese, on receiving a present from a superior, to touch the top of the head with it. This custom is alluded to in the king of Bungo’s letter to the Pope, pages 107 and 108.

[75] Descriptions of it will be found in Chapter XXXV, and also a census taken in 1690.

[76] This image was first set up in the year 1576 by the Emperor Taikō. The temple in which it was placed was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1596. The rebuilding was commenced in 1602. The colossus, however, was seriously injured by another earthquake in 1662, after which it was melted down, and a substitute prepared of wood covered with gilt paper. For a description of it, see Chapter XXXVII.

[77] The total number of baptisms in Japan, in 1606, according to the annual letter of that year, was almost three thousand. According to the letter of 1603, the number of confessions heard that year was eighty thousand. It appears from these letters that many female converts were made, among the higher classes, by the reputed efficacy of relics and the prayers of the church in cases of difficult labor.

[78] Don Rodrigo published in Spanish a narrative of his residence in Japan. Of this very rare and curious work an abstract, with extracts, is given in the “Asiatic Journal,” vol. ii, new series, 1830. The Spaniard is rather excessive in his estimates of population, but appears to have been sensible and judicious. His accounts are well borne out, as we shall see, by those of Saris, Kämpfer, and others. His whole title was Don Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco.

[79] There is a narrative of this journey, rather a perplexed one, apparently written by Spex himself, added to the Relation of Verhœven’s voyage in Recueil des Voyages qui out servi a l’establisement de la Compagnie des Indes Oriental dans les Provinces Unies. A full abstract of it is in the great collection, “Hist. Gen. des Voyages,” vol. viii.

[80] They had about four hundred, and the Spaniards about twice as many.

[81] Kämpfer gives this translation, and also a fac-simile of the original Japanese. The same translation is also given by Spex.

[82] The Franciscan martyrology says he was born at Seville of the blood royal.

[83] See paper on “Date Masamune,” in vol. xxi of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.

[84] An account in Italian of Sotelo’s embassy, Historia del Regno de Voxu del Giaponi, etc., e del Ambasciata, etc., was published at Rome the same year, 1615. There is no Japanese letter of later date than 1601, in the collection of Hay, or, as perhaps it ought rather to be called, of Martin Nutius (at least so his name was written in Latin), citizen and bookseller of Antwerp, at the sign of the two storks, “a man zealous for the Catholic faith,” so Hay says, and by whom the collection was projected. He applied to the rector of the Jesuit college at Antwerp for an editor, and Hay was appointed. A few of the letters were translated by Hay; the greater part had already appeared as separate pamphlets, translated by others. Hay’s vehement Scotch controversial spirit breaks out hotly in some of the dedicatory letters which he has introduced. Of the Japanese letters subsequent to 1601 there is no collection. They were published separately as they were received, translated into Italian, from which were made French and Spanish translations.

[85] See “Letters written by the English Residents in Japan, 1611-1623.”—Edr.

[86] “I am called in the Japanese tongue Angin Sama. By that name am I known all the coast along.”—Letters of Adams, Jan. 12, 1614.

[87] This is difficult to decipher, except kokoro warui (“heart bad”), and may not refer at all to Coreans.—Edr.

[88] Properly the spirit enshrined in the temple.—Edr.

[89] Saris makes no mention of tea, not yet known to the Europeans, and which, perhaps, he confounded with this hot water. All subsequent travellers have noted this practice of the Japanese of drinking everything warm even to water. Cold drinks might tend too much to check the digestion of their vegetable food; at any rate, they are thought to be frequently the occasion of a violent colic, one of the endemic diseases of Japan.

[90] London had at that time a population of two hundred and fifty thousand.

[91] Probably the one at Kamakura.—Edr.

[92] See “Letters written by the English Residents in Japan, 1611-1623.”—K. M.

[93] This word, though not to be found in any of our dictionaries, was in current use, at this time, in the signification of head merchant of a factory ship, or trading post,—cape being, probably, a contraction of captain.

[94] Yezo, otherwise called Matsumae, the island north of Nippon. There is in Purchas, “Pilgrimes,” vol. i., p. 364, a short account of this island, obtained from a Japanese, who had been there twice. It was visited in 1620 by Jerome de Angelis, who sent home an account of its gold-washings, which reads very much like a California letter. It was also then as now the seat of extensive fisheries. The gold which it produced made the Dutch and English anxious to explore it. The Dutch made some voyages in that direction and discovered some of the southern Kuriles; but the geography of those seas remained very confused till the voyages of La Perouse. Matsumae was the scene of Golownin’s captivity in 1812. [See chap. xliii.] One of the ports granted to the Americans (Hakodate) is on the southern coast of this island.

[95] These privileges are given by Purchas, “Pilgrimes,” vol. i., p. 357, with a fac-simile of the original Japanese.

[96] The old Gothic edifice, afterwards destroyed in the great fire of 1666, is the one here referred to.

[97] This is the same temple and idol seen and described by Don Rodrigo.

[98] Captain Saris states that the New Testament had been translated into Japanese for their use; but this is doubtless a mistake. A number of books of devotion were translated into Japanese, but we hear nowhere else of any New Testament, nor were such translations a part of the Jesuit missionary machinery.

[99] Of another festival, on the 23d of October, Cocks gives the following account: “The kings with all the rest of the nobility, accompanied with divers strangers, met together at a summer-house, set up before the great pagoda, to see a horse-race. Every nobleman went on horseback to the place, accompanied with a rout of slaves, some with pikes, some with small shot, and others with bows and arrows. The pikemen were placed on one side of the street, and the shot and archers on the other, the middest of the street being left void to run the race; and right before the summer-house, where the king and nobles sat, was a round buckler of straw hanging against the wall, at which the archers on horseback, running a full career, discharged their arrows, both in the street and summer-house where the nobles sat.” This, from the date, would seem to be the festival of Tenshō Daijin. See p. 359. Caron, “Relation du Japon,” gives a similar description.

[100] Captain Saris’ account of his voyage and travels in Japan (which agrees remarkably with the contemporaneous observations of Don Rodrigo, and with the subsequent ones of Kämpfer and others), may be found in Purchas, “His Pilgrimes,” part i, book iv, chap. i, sect. 4-8. Cocks’ not less curious observations may be found in chap. iii, sect. 1-3, of the same book and part. There is also a readable summary of what was then known of Japan, in Purchas, “His Pilgrimage,” book v, chap. xv.

Rundall, in his “Memorials of the Empire of Japan,” printed by the Hackluyt Society, 1850, has republished Adams’ first letter, from two MSS. in the archives of the East India Company; but the variations from the text, as given by Purchas, are hardly as important as he represents. He gives also from the same records four other letters from Adams, not before printed. It seems from these letters, and from certain memoranda of Cocks, that there were three reasons why Adams did not return with Saris, notwithstanding the emperor’s free consent to his doing so. Besides his wife and daughter in England, he had also a wife, son, and daughter in Japan. Though he had the estate mentioned as given him by the emperor (called Hemmi, about eight miles from Uraga), on which were near a hundred households, his vassals, over whom he had power of life and death, yet he had little money, and did not like to go home with an empty purse. He had quarrelled with Saris, who had attempted to drive a hard bargain with him. The East India Company had advanced twenty pounds to his wife in England. Saris wanted him to serve the company for that sum and such additional pay as they might see fit to give. But Adams, whom the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese, were all anxious to engage in their service, insisted upon a stipulated hire. He asked twelve pounds a month, but consented to take a hundred pounds a year, to be paid at the end of two years.

See “History of the English Factory at Hirado,” in vol. xxvi. of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, and “Diary of Richard Cocks,” edited by Mr. N. Murakami, and published in Tōkyō in 1899.—Edr.

[101] He was deified, and is still worshipped under the name of Gongen-Sama, given to him after his death. It is from him that the reigning emperors of Japan trace their descent. He is buried at the temple of Nikkō, three days’ journey from Yedo, of the splendor of which marvellous stories are told. Caron, who wrote about the time it was built, speaks as if he had seen it. In 1782, M. Titsingh, then Dutch director, solicited permission to visit this temple, but was refused, as there was no precedent for such a favor.

[102] These modified privileges have been printed for the first time by Rundall.

[103] Lopo de Vega, the poet, who held the office of procurator fiscal to the apostolic chamber of the archbishopric of Toledo, celebrated the constancy of the Japanese martyrs, in a pamphlet entitled “Triumpho de la Fe en los Regnos del Japon, pas los annos de 1614 y 1615,” published in 1617. “Take away from this work,” says Charlevoix, “the Latin and Spanish verses, the quotations foreign to the subject, and the flourish of the style, and there will be nothing left of it.” The subject was much more satisfactorily treated by Nicholas Trigault, himself a very distinguished member of the Chinese mission, which he had joined in 1610. He returned to Europe in 1615, travelling on foot through Persia, Arabia, and Egypt, to obtain a fresh supply of laborers. Besides an account of the Jesuit mission to China (from which, next to Marco Polo’s travels, Europe gathered its first distinct notions of that empire), and a summary of the Japanese mission from 1609 to 1612, published during this visit to Europe, just before his departure, in 1618 (taking with him forty-four missionaries, who had volunteered to follow him to China), he completed four books concerning the triumphs of the Christians in the late persecution in Japan, to which, while at Goa, on his way to China, he added a fifth book, bringing down the narrative to 1616. The whole, derived from the annual Japanese letters, was printed in 1623, in a small quarto of five hundred and twenty pages, illustrated by numerous engravings of martyrdoms, and containing also a short addition, bringing down the story to the years 1617-1620, and a list of Japanese martyrs, to the number of two hundred and sixty-eight. There is also added a list of thirty-eight houses and residences (including two colleges, one at Arima, the other at Nagasaki) which the Jesuits had been obliged to abandon; and of five Franciscan, four Dominican, and two Augustinian convents, from which the inmates had been driven. These works of Trigault, published originally in Latin, were translated into French and Spanish. Various other accounts of the same persecution appeared in Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. “A Brief Relation of the Persecution lately made against the Catholic Christians of Japan” was published at London, 1616. Meanwhile Purchas, in the successive editions of his “Pilgrimage,” gave an account of the Japanese missions, which is the best and almost the only one (though now obsolete and forgotten) in the English language. That contained in the fourth edition (annexed as a fifth part to the “Pilgrimes”), and published in 1625, is the fullest. Captain Saris, according to Purchas, ascribed the persecution to the discovery, by the Japanese, that the Jesuits, under the cloak of religion, were but merchants.

[104] Such was the charge of the English. The Dutch narratives, however, abound with similar charges against the English. Both probably were true enough, as both nations captured all the Chinese junks they met.

[105] The date, as given by Purchas (evidently by a misprint), is 1610.

[106] The “Swan” and the “Attendance.” The number of English runaways was three, not six.—K. M.

[107] From Jacatra Pring proceeded to England with a cargo of pepper. It would seem that he had not forgotten his early voyages to the coast of America, for while his ship lay in the road of Saldanha, near the Cape of Good Hope, a contribution of seventy pounds eight shillings and sixpence was raised among the ship’s company to endow a school, to be called the East India School, in the colony of Virginia. Other contributions were made for this school, and the Virginia Company endowed it with a farm of a thousand acres, which they sent tenants to cultivate; but this, like the Virginia University, and many other public-spirited and promising enterprises, was ruined and annihilated by the fatal Indian massacre of 1622.

The “Royal James” carried also to England a copy in Japanese, still preserved in the archives of the East India Company, of Adams’ will. With commendable impartiality he divided his property, which, by the inventory annexed, amounted to nineteen hundred and seventy-two tael, two mas, four kandarins (two thousand four hundred and sixty-five dollars and twenty-nine cents), equally between his Japanese and his English family,—the English share to go, one half to the wife and the other half to the daughter, it not being his mind, so Cocks wrote, “his wife should have all, in regard she might marry another husband, and carry all from his child.” By the same ship Cocks made a remittance to the English family, having delivered “one hundred pounds sterling to diverse of the ‘Royal James’Company, entered into the purser’s books, to pay in England, two for one,”—a very handsome rate of exchange, which throws some light on the profits of East India trade in those days. Adams’ Japanese estate probably descended to his Japanese son; and who knows but the family survives to this day? The situation of this estate was but a very short distance from the spot where the recent American treaty was made; nor is the distance great from Shimoda, one of the ports granted by that treaty. The command of the fleet left behind, on Pring’s departure, devolved on Captain Robert Adams. According to Cocks’ account, the crews, both Dutch and English, inferior officers as well as men, were a drunken, dissolute, quarrelsome set. Rundall gives a curious record of the trial by jury and execution of an Englishman of this fleet for the murder of a Dutchman; and it seems the Dutch reciprocated by hanging a Dutchman for killing an Englishman. Master Arthur Hatch was chaplain of this fleet. Purchas gives (vol. i, part ii, book x, ch. i) a letter from him, written after his return, containing a brief sketch of his observations in Japan. Purchas also gives a letter from Cocks, which, in reference to the koku of rice, agrees very well with Titsingh’s statement quoted on page fifty-nine. Cocks represents the revenues of the Japanese princes as being estimated in mankoku of rice, each containing ten thousand koku, and each koku containing one hundred gantas (gantings), a ganta being a measure equal to three English ale pints.

Cocks states the revenue of the king of Hirado at six mankoku. He maintained four thousand soldiers, his quota for the emperor’s service being two thousand. The income of Kodzuke-no-Suke, formerly three, had lately been raised to fifteen mankoku. That of the king of Satsuma was one hundred, and that of the prince next in rank to the emperor, two hundred mankoku. The value of the mankoku was calculated at the English factory at nine thousand three hundred and seventy-five pounds, which would make the koku worth eighteen shillings and sixpence sterling, or four dollars and fifty cents, and agrees very well with Caron’s estimates of the koku, which he calls cokien, as worth ten Dutch florins, or four dollars. The estimates of Kämpfer and Titsingh, given on page fifty-nine, are higher.

[108] Dr. Riess estimates the loss at less than ten thousand pounds.—Edr.

[109] See Appendix F.

[110] 1624 ought to be 1616.—K. M.

[111] It may be found in Thevenot’s Collection of Voyages, also in “Voyages des Indes,” tom. v.

[112] A candid and conclusive answer to Sotelo, or the false Sotelo, as the Jesuits persisted in calling him, was published at Madrid immediately after the appearance of his letter, by Don Jean Cevicos, a commissary of the holy office, who was able to speak from personal observation. Cevicos had been captain of the galleon “St. Francis,” the ship in which Don Rodrigo de Vivero had been wrecked on the coast of Japan, as related in a former chapter. After a six months’ stay in Japan, and an acquaintance there with Sotelo, Cevicos sailed for Manila, was captured on the passage by the Dutch, but recaptured by a Spanish fleet. Arrived at Manila, he renounced the seas, commenced the study of theology, was ordained priest, and became provisor of the archbishopric of the Philippines. The business of this office brought him to Spain, and being at Madrid when the letter ascribed to Sotelo appeared, he thought it his duty to reply to it. A full abstract of this answer, as well as of Sotelo’s charges, may be found at the end of Charlevoix’s “Histoire du Japon.” It appears, from documents quoted in it, that the missionaries of the other orders agreed with the Jesuits in ascribing the persecution mainly to the idea, which the Dutch made themselves very busy in insinuating, that the independence of Japan was in danger from the Spaniards and the Pope, who were on the watch to gain, by means of the missionaries, the mastery of Japan, as they had of Portugal and so many other countries.

The charges made in the name of Sotelo against the Jesuits are of more interest from the fact that, at the time of the Jansenist quarrel, they were revived and reurged with a bitterness of hatred little short of that which had prompted their original concoction.

A Spanish history of the Franciscan mission, full of bitter hatred against the Jesuits, was published at Madrid in 1632, written down to 1620, by Father Fray Jacinto Orfanel, who was arrested that year, and burnt two years after, and continued by Collado, who was also the author of a Japanese grammar and dictionary.

[113] Shōgun-Sama seems to be only a title, not a name. This is Lyemitsu, the “third Shōgun.”—Edr.

[114] A shuet of silver weighs about five ounces, so that the reward offered was from $2,000 to $2,500.

[115] A narrative of this transaction was published at Rome in 1643. A short but curious document, purporting to be a translation of a Japanese imperial edict, commanding the destruction of all Portuguese vessels attempting to approach the coasts of Japan, is given in “Voyages au Nord,” tom. iv. Ships of other nations were to be sent under a strong guard to Nagasaki. [See Appendix, Note 1.]

[116] This curious piece may be found in French, in the “Voyages des Indes,” tom. v.

[117] Haganaar’s travels may be found in “Voyages des Indes,” tom. v., and a narrative of Nuyts’ affair in “Voyages au Nord,” tom. iv.

[118] According to Titsingh, they amounted in his time (1780) to eighty thousand in number. Apparently they are the Dōshin, or imperial soldiers, of whom we shall have occasion hereafter to speak.

[119] This quantity of rice would suffice for the support of twelve million persons or more. The cultivators of the imperial domains retained, according to Kämpfer, six-tenths of the produce, and those who cultivated the lands of inferior lords four-tenths. Hence it may be conjectured that the estimate of twenty-five millions of people for Japan is not excessive.

[120] These lists were doubtless copied from the Yedo Kagami (Mirror of Yedo), a kind of Blue Book, still published twice a year, and containing similar lists. See “Annals des Empereurs du Japon” (Titsingh and Klaproth), p. 37, note.

[See paper on Japanese feudalism, in vol. xv of the “Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.”—Edr.]

[121] There are two versions of Caron’s account of Japan, materially different from each other; one with the original questions, as furnished by Caron himself to Thevenot, the other in the form of a continuous narrative, with large additions by Haganaar. The first may be found in Thevenot’s “Voyages Curieuse,” also in “Voyages au Nord,” tom. iv. The other in “Voyages des Indes,” tom. v, and an English translation of it in Pinkerton’s collection, vol. vii.

[122] A curious contemporary narrative of this affair is given, among other tracts relating to Japan, in “Voyages au Nord,” tom. iv. It is not unlikely that the military operations of the Dutch in the neighboring island of Formosa, and their strong fort of Zelandia, recently erected there, might have aroused the suspicions of the Japanese.

[123] There is an account of the voyage of the “Castricoom” in Thevenot’s collection. It is also contained in “Voyages au Nord,” tom. iii. Charlevoix gives a full and interesting abstract of the adventures of Captain Schaëp and his companions, derived from two different French versions of a Dutch original; but I know not where either the versions or the original can be found.

[124] The journals of these embassies of Waganaar, Frisius, and others, generally pretty dry documents, with extracts from Caron, furnished the basis for the “Memorable Embassies of the Dutch to the Emperors of Japan,” a splendid folio, with more than a hundred copper plates, published at Amsterdam in 1669, purporting to be compiled by Arnold Montanus, of which an English translation, made by Ogilvy, with the same cuts, appeared the next year at London, under the title of Atlas Japonensis, and a French translation, with some additions and alterations, ten years later at Amsterdam.

The materials are thrown together in the most careless and disorderly manner, and are eked out by drawing largely upon the letters of the Jesuit missionaries. The cuts, whence most of the current prints representing Japanese objects are derived, are destitute of any authenticity. Those representing Japanese idols and temples evidently were based on the descriptions of Froez, whose accounts do not seem quite to agree in all respects with the observations of more recent travellers.

The dedication of Ogilvy’s translation outdoes anything Japanese in the way of prostration, nor can the language of it hardly be called English. It is as follows: “To the supreme, most high and mighty prince, Charles II., by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, king, defender of the faith, &c. These strange and novel relations concerning the ancient and present state of the so populous and wealthy empire of Japan, being a book of wonders, dedicated with all humility, lies prostrate at the sacred feet of your most serene majesty, by the humblest of your servants, and most loyal subject, John Ogilvy.”

[125] This letter, with the instructions and a memoir of Caron’s on the subject, may be found in “Voyages au Nord,” tom. iv. Caron, who spent several years in the French service in the East Indies, perished by shipwreck, near Lisbon, on his return to France in 1674. He was president of the Dutch factory at the time of its removal to Deshima; and Kämpfer undertakes to represent his mismanagement as in some degree the cause of that removal. This story was doubtless current at Deshima in Kämpfer’s time, but probably it grew out of disgust of the Dutch at Caron’s having passed into the French service.

[126] A curious narrative of this visit is printed in Pinkerton’s great collection, vol. vii.

[See also “Diary of Richard Cocks.”—K. M.]

[127] For a further account of Fitch and his travels, see Appendix, Note E.

[128] The China trade was shared at this time between the Portuguese of Macao and the Spaniards of the Philippines. On the Spanish trade, and the profits of it, some light is thrown by extracts from letters found on board Spanish prizes taken by the English, which Hackluyt translated and published in his fourth volume. Thus Hieronymo de Nabores writes from Panama (August 24, 1590), where he was waiting for the ship for the Philippines: “My meaning is to carry my commodities thither, for it is constantly reported that for every one hundred ducats a man shall get six hundred ducats clearly.” This, however, was only the talk at Panama; but Sebastian Biscanio had made the voyage, and he writes to his father from Acapulco (June 20, 1590): “In this harbor here are four great ships of Mexico, of six hundred or eight hundred tons apiece, which only serve to carry our commodities to China, and so to return back again. The order is thus. From hence to China is about two thousand leagues further than from hence to Spain; and from hence the two first ships depart together to China, and are thirteen or fourteen months returning back again. And when these ships are returned, then the other twain, two months after, depart from hence. They go now from hence very strong with soldiers. I can certify you of one thing: that two hundred ducats in Spanish commodities, and some Flemish woods which I carried with me thither, I made worth fourteen hundred ducats there in that country. So I make account that with those silks and other commodities with me from thence to Mexico, I got twenty-five hundred ducats by the voyage; and had gotten more, if one pack of fine silks had not been spoiled with salt water. So, as I said, there is great gain to be gotten, if that a man return in safety. But the year 1588, I had great mischance coming in a ship from China to New Spain; which, being laden with rich commodities, was taken by an Englishman [this was Cavendish, then on his voyage round the world], which robbed us and afterwards burnt our ship, wherein I lost a great deal of treasure and commodities.”

[129] The tael, reckoning the picul at one hundred and thirty-three and one-third pounds avoirdupois, contains five hundred and eighty-three grains troy. Our dollar weighs four hundred and twelve and a half grains; and supposing the Japanese silver to be of equal fineness, the tael is worth just about one dollar and forty cents. Kämpfer reckons it as equivalent to three and a half florins, which is precisely one dollar and forty cents, taking the florin at the usual valuation of forty cents. This, however, was rather above the valuation of the Dutch East India Company. There were, it seems, two kinds of Japanese silver, known among the Dutch as heavy and light money, the latter sometimes distinguished as bar-silver. Both kinds were carried to account without distinction down to the year 1635, at the rate of sixty-two and a half silvers, or one dollar and twenty-five cents per tael. After that period the bar-silver was reckoned at fifty-seven stivers, or one dollar and fourteen cents per tael. Reckoning the tael, as the Dutch commonly did, at one dollar and twenty-five cents of our money, and the mas is precisely equivalent to the Spanish eighth of a dollar. This statement is derived from a Dutch memoir by Imhoff, quoted by Raffles (“History of Java,” Appendix B), and found by him, it would seem, among the Dutch records at Batavia. Of the chests of silver and gold, particularly the former, so often mentioned in the old accounts of the Dutch and Portuguese trade, I have met with no description, except in Montanus’ “Memorable Embassies.” Unreliable and worthless as that huge volume generally is, its compilers certainly had access to valuable Dutch papers, and it is apparently from that source that they have drawn what they say of the moneys, weights, and measures of Japan. Of the chests of silver and gold they speak as follows: “Moreover, their paying of money is very strange; for the Japanese, having great store of gold and silver, observe a custom to receive their money without telling or seeing it. The mint-master puts the gold in papers, which contain the value of two hundred pounds sterling; these, sealed up, pass from one to another without being questioned. They also use little wooden boxes, in which they put twenty sealed papers of gold, which is as much as a man can handsomely carry; every box amounts to four thousand pounds sterling; and the like boxes, but of another fashion, they use for their silver, in every one of which is twelve hundred crowns, and is sealed with the coiner’s seal. But doth it not seem strange that never any deceit is found in that blind way of paying money?” “The silver, though weighed and coined, is of no certain value. The coiners put it together into little packs worth sixty crowns,”—I suppose taels. Caron says, however, that these packages contained fifty taels.

[130] These temples, built in Japan by the Chinese merchants, remind one of the temples built in Egypt by the Greek merchants, who first opened a trade with that country. See Grote’s “History of Greece,” chap. xx.

[131] The kamishimo is a state dress, composed of two garments (kami signifies what is above, and shimo what is below), a short cloak, without sleeves, called kataginu, and breeches, called hakama. Both are of a particular form (the breeches being like a petticoat sewed up between the legs), and of colored stuffs. They are used only on days of ceremony and at funerals.—Titsingh.

[132] Unfortunately for the English, their attempt at a revival of intercourse, mentioned in the last chapter, was made the very year of the introduction of this new check on foreign trade. The appraisement extended as well to the Chinese as the Dutch cargoes, as is apparent from the following closing paragraph of the English narrative: “During the time (July and August, 1673) we were in port, there came twelve junks in all, eight from Batavia, two from Siam, one from Canton, one from Cambodia, and six Dutch ships of the Company’s. They had not any from Taiwan (Formosa), by reason the year before they put the price upon their sugar and skins; and so they intend to do for all other people, for whatsoever goods shall be brought to their port; which if they do, few will seek after their commodities on such unequal terms.”

There is strong reason to suppose that these new restrictions on foreign trade grew out of the diminished produce of the mines, which furnished the chief article of export. The working of these mines seems to have greatly increased after the pacification of Japan by its subjection to the imperial authority. Such is the statement in the Japanese tract on the wealth of Japan, already referred to. According to this tract the first gold coins were struck by Taikō-Sama. This increase of metallic product seems to have given, about the time of the commencement of the Dutch trade, a new impulse to foreign commerce. Though the Portuguese trade had been stopped, it had been a good deal more than replaced by the increase of the Chinese traffic, and already the metallic drain appears to have been seriously felt. This is a much more likely reason for the policy now adopted than the mere personal hostility of certain Japanese grandees, to which the Dutch at Deshima, and Kämpfer as their echo, ascribed it.

[133] According to Titsingh, the Chinese factory was removed, in 1780, to a new situation, the site of an ancient temple. He gives a plan of the new factory after a Japanese draft.

[134] Thunberg notices an odd mistake by the engravers, in representing the Japanese as wearing their swords as we do, with the edge downward, whereas their custom is just the reverse, the edge being turned upwards.

[135] See also an “Abstract” of Kämpfer’s History in vol. ii of the “Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.”—Edr.

[136] A translation of one of these tablets is given by Kämpfer as follows:

“Courtesans only, but no other women, shall be admitted. Only the ecclesiastics of the mountain Kōya shall be admitted. All other priests, and all Yamabushi, shall stand excluded.” (Note by Kämpfer. —Kōyais stated to be a mountain near Miyako, a sanctuary and asylum for criminals, no officers of justice being suffered to come there. Its inhabitants, many thousand in number, lead an ecclesiastical life. All are admitted that desire it, or who fly there for shelter, and are afterwards maintained for life, if they can but bring in thirty taels for the use of the convent, and are otherwise willing to serve the community in their several capacities. These monks are not absolutely confined to this mountain, but many travel up and down the country in what manner or business they please. Very many of them betake themselves to trade and commerce.)

“All beggars, and all persons that live on charity, shall be denied entrance.

“Nobody shall presume with any ship or boat to come within the palisades of Deshima. Nobody shall presume with any ship or boat to pass under the bridge of Deshima.

“No Hollander shall be permitted to come out, but for weighty reasons.”

[137] For a full account of this journey, see Chap. XXXI, etc.

[138] For an account of this festival, see Chap. XXIX.

[139] The custom of using an emblem, or device, instead of a signature, or to certify it, prevails with the Japanese, as with so many other nations.

[140] See further, in relation to this ceremony, Chap. XXIX.

[141] Properly kuriki, but abbreviated to kuri, to approximate “coolie.” See note on page 309.—Edr.

[142] See also “Formosa under the Dutch” (Campbell), and “The Island of Formosa” (Davidson).—Edr.

[143] The smuggling affair mentioned on page 327.

[144] This is, evidently, the word coolie, employed in India and China to designate laborers of the lowest class. [See note on page 300.—Edr.]

[145] Along the east coast of Asia, and as far north as the southern coasts of Japan, the winds, during the six months from April to September inclusive, blow from southwest to northeast This is called the southwest monsoon. During the other six months they blow from northeast to southwest. This is called the northeast monsoon.

[146] Ambergris is a substance thrown up from the stomachs of whales suffering from dyspepsia or some other disease. It is much employed in the East in the preparation of perfumes and sweetmeats, and once had considerable reputation in Europe. Its true nature was for a long time in dispute. The Japanese understood it, as appears from their name of the articles, Kujira-no-fun, that is, whale’s excrements.

[147] This corresponds with Siebold’s description, who goes quite into raptures at the first sight he had, in 1825, of the hills about Nagasaki.

[148] It would seem that Europe had derived the idea of paper-hangings, as a substitute for tapestry, from Japan.

[149] According to Haganaar this sake is flavored with honey or sugar. It is very heating and heavy. Saris describes it as almost as strong as aqua vitæ. It appears to be very various in quality and strength, quite as much so as European ale or beer. The yeast from this sake is largely used for preserving fruit and vegetables. The acid of it penetrates the fruit or vegetable, giving it a peculiar flavor, of which the Japanese are very fond.

The Japanese are very fond of social drinking parties; but, according to Caron, no drunken brawls occur, each person taking himself quietly off as soon as he finds that he has enough or too much.

[150] This prayer, or invocation, unintelligible to the Japanese, is, as our modern Orientalists have discovered, good Sanscrit.

[151] Another change, simultaneous with the restrictions upon Dutch and Chinese trade, was the selection of the governors from the military and noble class, instead of from the mercantile class, as had previously been the case.

[152] These Yoriki and Dōshin seem to be the same officers spoken of in the subsequent Dutch narratives as Gobanjoshu (said to mean government overseeing officers), or by corruption, banjoses, upper and under. The Dōshin seem to be the same with the imperial soldiers.

[153] The Japanese division of time is peculiar. The day, from the beginning of morning twilight to the end of evening twilight (so says Siebold, correcting former statements, which give instead sunrise and sunset), is divided into six hours, and the night, from the beginning to the end of darkness, into six other hours. Of course the length of these hours is constantly varying. Their names (according to Titsingh) are as follows: Kokonotsu [nine], noon, and midnight; Yatsu [eight], about our two o’clock; Nanatsu [seven], from four to five; Mutsu [six], end of the evening and commencement of morning twilight; Itsutsu [five], eight to nine; Yotsu [four], about ten; and then Kokonotsu again. Each of these hours is also subdivided into four parts, thus: Kokonotsu, noon or midnight; Kokonotsu-han [nine and a half], quarter past; Kokonotsu-han-sugi [past nine and a half], half past; Kokonotsu-han-sugi-maye [before past nine and a half], three quarters past; commencement of second hour: Yatsu-han, etc., and so through all the hours.

The hours are struck on bells, Kokonotsu being indicated by nine strokes, preceded (as is the case also with all the hours) by three warning strokes, to call attention, and to indicate that the hour is to be struck, and followed, after a pause of about a minute and a half, by the strokes for the hour, between which there is an interval of about fifteen seconds,—the last, however, following its predecessor still more rapidly, to indicate that the hour is struck. Yatsu is indicated by eight strokes, Nanatsu by seven, Mutsu by six, Itsutsu by five, and Yotsu by four. Much speculation has been resorted to by the Japanese to explain why they do not employ, to indicate hours, one, two, and three strokes. The obvious answer seems to be, that while three strokes have been appropriated as a forewarning, their method of indicating that the striking is finished would not be available, if one and two strokes designated the first and second hours. [See paper on “Japanese Calendars,” in vol. xxx of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.]

[154] Caron implies that it was only as to state offences that this mutual responsibility exists. According to Guysbert, in his account of the persecution at Nagasaki, if a converted priest was discovered, not only the householder concealing him was held responsible, but the two nearest householders on either side, though not only ignorant of the fact, but pagans. This strict system was very effectual for the purposes of the persecution.

[155] Better fumiye or fumie.—Edr.

[156] It would seem from Guysbert, that the participation by young children in the death decreed against the parents, was rather the act of those parents who had the power of life and death over their children, and who did not choose to part with them in this extremity.

[157] The Japanese year begins at the new moon nearest to the fifth of February (the middle point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox).

[158] According to Klaproth’s statement of Japanese legend, in his “Histoire Mythologique,” introductory to Titsingh’s “Annals of the Dairi,” the first three of the celestial gods were solitary males. The next three had female companions, yet produced their successors by the force of mutual contemplation only. The seventh pair found out the ordinary method of generation, of which the first result was the successive production of eight islands, those of Japan (the number eight being selected simply because it is esteemed the most perfect), after which they gave birth also to mountains, rivers, plants, and trees. To provide a ruler and governor for these creations, they next produced Tenshō daijin, or, in Japanese (for Tenshō daijin is Chinese), Ama terasu-no-kami (Celestial Spirit of Sunlight); but, thinking her too beautiful for the earth, they placed her in the heavens, as they did, likewise, their second born, a daughter, also, Tsuki-no-kami, goddess of the moon. Their third child, Ebisu saburō, was made god of the sea; their fourth child, Susanoō, also a son, god of the winds and tempest. He was agreeable enough when in good humor, and at times had his eyes filled with tears, but was liable to such sudden outbreaks and caprices of temper as to render him quite unreliable. It was concluded to send him away to the regions of the north; but before going he got leave to pay a visit to his sisters in heaven. At first he had a good understanding with them, but soon committed so many outrages,—in the spring spoiling the flower borders, and in the autumn riding through the ripe corn on a wild horse,—that in disgust Tenshō daijin hid herself in a cavern, at the mouth of which she placed a great stone. Darkness forthwith settled over the heavens. The eight hundred thousand gods, in great alarm, assembled in council, when, among other expedients, one of their number, who was a famous dancer, was set to dance to music at the mouth of the cavern. Tenshō daijin, out of curiosity, moved the stone a little, to get a look at what was going on, when immediately Te chikara o-no kami (god of the strong hand) caught hold of it, rolled it away, and dragged her out, while two others stretched ropes across the mouth so that she could not get in again. Finally, the matter was compromised by clipping the claws and hair of Susanoō, after which he was sent off to the north, though not till he had killed a dragon, married a wife, and become the hero of other notable adventures. This legend makes it clear what Anjirō, the first Japanese convert, meant by speaking of the Japanese as worshippers of the sun and moon. See ante, p. 49. The annual festival of Tenshō daijin falls on the sixteenth day of the ninth month, immediately after that of Suwa, and is celebrated throughout the empire by matsuri much like that described in the text. The sixteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-sixth days of every month are likewise sacred to her, but not celebrated with any great solemnity. [Also see “Kojiki.”—Edr.]

Kämpfer mentions as the gods particularly worshipped by the mercantile class: 1. Yebisu, the Neptune of the country, and the protector of fishermen and seafaring people, said to be able to live two or three days under water. He is represented sitting on a rock, with an angling-rod in one hand, and the delicious fish, Tai, or Steinbrassin (Sparus Aurata, the Japanese name, signifies red lady), in the other. 2. Dai-koku, commonly represented sitting on a bale of rice, with his fortunate hammer in his right hand, and a bag laid by him to put in what he knocks out; for he is said to have the power of knocking out, from whatever he strikes with his hammer, whatever he wants, as rice, clothes, money, etc. Klaproth states him to be of Indian origin, and that this name signifies Great Black. 3. Toshitoku, represented standing, clad in a large gown with long sleeves, with a long beard, a huge forehead, large ears, and a fan in his right hand. Worshipped at the beginning of the new year, in hopes of obtaining, by his assistance, success and prosperity. 4. Hotei, represented with a huge belly, and supposed to have in his gift, health, riches, and children. [These are four of the “Seven Gods of Happiness.” See also paper on that subject, in vol. viii of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—Edr.]

[159] On the whole, and from the play-bills presently given, the performance would seem to be a good deal like that of Pyramus and Thisbe, in the Midsummer Night’s Dream.

[160] Certainly there is nothing of which the Japanese stood, and still stand, more in need than some contrivance for extinguishing fires. Caron, in his memorial addressed to Colbert, had recommended a present of fire-extinguishers.

[161] See p. 265.

[162] These zeni were of various values, a thousand of them being worth, according to Caron, from eight to twenty-six mas, that is, from a dollar to three dollars and a quarter; the zeni varying, therefore, from a mill to three mills and a quarter. Of the existing copper coinage we shall speak hereafter. See vol. ii, p. 309.

[163] “Though it may sound extraordinary to talk of a soldier with a fan, yet the use of that article is so general in Japan that no respectable man is to be seen without one. These fans are a foot long, and sometimes serve for parasols; at others instead of memorandum books. They are adorned with paintings of landscapes, birds, flowers, or ingenious sentences. The etiquette to be observed in regard to the fan requires profound study and close attention.”—Titsingh. “At feasts and ceremonies the fan is always stuck in the girdle, on the left hand, behind the sabre, with the handle downward.”—Thunberg. [See paper on “Japanese Fans,” in vol. ii of the Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society, London.—Edr.]

[164] This is exclusive of the central tract or imperial domain (consisting of five provinces), and also of the two island provinces of Iki and Tsushima. [See also Note A in the Appendix.—Edr.]

[165] For a part of the distance across Kiūshiū (or Shimo), different routes were taken in the first and second of Kämpfer’s journeys. In the first he crossed the gulf of Ōmura; in the second, the gulf of Shimabara, these two gulfs enclosing the peninsula of Ōmura, the one on the north, the other on the east.

[166] The distance is reckoned by the Japanese at three hundred and thirty-two to three hundred and thirty-three leagues; but these Japanese leagues are of unequal length, varying from eighteen thousand to about thirteen thousand feet, and the water-leagues generally shorter than those by land in the proportion of five to three. Kämpfer makes the whole distance two hundred German or about eight hundred English miles.

[167] Three or four inches thick (according to Thunberg), and made of rushes and rice straw.

[168] Japanese feet, that is, for, according to Klaproth (“Annales des Emp. du Japon”) page 404, note, the ken is equal to seven feet four inches and a half, Rhineland (which does not differ much from our English) measure.

[169] These windows are of light frames, which may be taken out, and put in, and slid behind each other at pleasure, divided into parallelograms like our panes of glass, and covered with paper. Glass windows are unknown.

[170] Thunberg says, “tiles of a singular make, very thick and heavy.”

[171] In a Japanese map brought home by Kämpfer the number of castles in the whole empire is set down at a hundred and forty-six.

[172] The whole number of towns in the empire, great and small, is set down in the above-mentioned map at more than thirteen thousand.

[173] Kämpfer’s meaning seems to be only that the Shintō priests were not monks living together in convents, like the Buddhist clergy, but having houses and families of their own.

[174] According to a memorandum annexed to the Japanese map already mentioned, there were in Japan twenty-seven thousand seven hundred Kami temples, one hundred and twenty-two thousand five hundred and eighty Buddhist temples, in all forty-nine thousand two hundred and eighty. By the census of 1850, there were in the United States thirty-eight thousand one hundred and eighty-three buildings used for religious worship.

It would appear that though the Shintō temples did not want worshippers who freely contributed alms to the support of the priests, yet that since the abolition of the Catholic worship, and as a sort of security against it, every Japanese was required to enroll himself as belonging to some Buddhist sect or observance.

[175] These oharai, or indulgence-boxes, are little boxes made of thin boards and filled with small sticks wrapped in bits of white paper. Great virtues are ascribed to them, but a new one is necessary every year. They are manufactured and sold by the Shintō priests.