The Stonewall had been lying at the Washington Navy-Yard when I was stationed there in 1866. Measured by to-day's standards she was of trivial power, small in size, moderate in speed, light in armor and armament; but her ram was of formidable dimensions, and at that period the tactical value of the ram was estimated much more highly than it now is. The disastrous effect of the thrust, if successfully made, outweighed in men's minds the difficulty of hitting; an error of valuation similar to that which has continuously exaggerated the danger from torpedo craft of all kinds. After the sailing of the Iroquois, a deputation of Japanese officials came to the United States on a mission, part of which was to buy ships of war. In reply to their inquiries, Commander—now Rear-Admiral—George Brown, then ordnance officer of the yard, pointed out the Stonewall to them as a vessel suitable for their immediate purposes, and with which our government might probably part. He also expressed a favorable opinion of her sea-going qualities for reaching Japan. A few days later they came to him and said that, as he thought well of her, perhaps he would undertake to carry her out; their own seamanship at that early date being unequal to the responsibility. This was more than was anticipated by Brown, interested in his present duties, but it rather put him on his mettle; and so he set forth, a satisfactory pecuniary arrangement having been concluded. She went by way of the Strait of Magellan and the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Yokohama without other incident than constant ducking. As one of her officers said, clothes needed not to be scrubbed; a soiled garment could be simply secured on the forward deck, and left there to wash in the water that came on board until it was clean. I have never known her subsequent fortunes in Japanese hands; but as the beginning of their armored navy she has a place in history—and here.
From Yokohama the Iroquois returned to Kobé, and there lay during July, August, and September; so that in our two visits I passed five months in this part of the Inland Sea. The summer, in its way, is there as pleasant as the winter in its. The highest thermometer I read was 87° Fahrenheit, and there was almost always a pleasant breeze. The country was now so far safe that we went everywhere within reasonable reach of the concession, and the scenery presented such variety in sameness as to be a perpetual source of enjoyment. The most striking characteristics are the views of the enclosed sea itself, ample in expanse, yet without the monotony attendant upon an unbounded water view; and, when that disappears, follows the succession of enclosed valleys, alike, yet different; a recurrent feature similar, though on another scale, to that presented by the valley of the Inn on the ride from Zurich to Innsbruck. How far away those days are is seen from my noting on one of them, while visiting what was known to us as the Moon Temple, that the ships of war below were dressed in honor of the first Napoleon's birthday, August 15th; an observance which ceased with the empire.
This time I managed an opportunity of seeing Osaka, which the disturbed conditions had prevented my doing during our winter stay. Description I shall avoid, as always; enough to say that the flatness of the site, in low land, six miles from the mouth of the narrow, winding river, makes the city one of canals, like Venice and Amsterdam. In visiting the great castle of the Tycoon, a stone fortification notable not only for its own size, but for the dimensions of the huge single stones of which it is built, we went by boat, following a sluggish watercourse, an eighth of a mile wide, and so shallow that we poled through it. The pull from the bar to the city was very tedious, and Kobé evidently had proved the better commercial situation; for even now, half a year after the opening of the port, we were looked upon with curiosity; were followed by crowds which stopped if we stopped, moved when we moved. To the children we were objects of apprehension; they eyed us fearfully, and scuttled away rapidly if we made any feint at rushing towards them. Nevertheless, the prevailing tone among the common people was now plainly kindly, although six months before they would at times spit at foreigners from the bridges which in great numbers span the streams. The temper of those who form mobs changes lightly. It is true that in our excursions we were accompanied by an armed guard, which would seem to indicate possibilities of danger; but these samurai themselves were not only courteous, but interested and smiling, and I thought gave good promise that their class in general was coming round to friendliness.
We left Kobé towards the end of September, in company with a new flag-ship which had arrived to take the place of the Hartford. This vessel rejoiced to call herself Piscataqua, which is worth recording as a sample of a class of name then much affected by the powers that were, presumably on account of their length; "fine flourishers," to quote the always illustrative Boatswain Chucks, "as long as their homeward-bound pendants, which in a calm drop in the water alongside." Piscataqua, however uncouth, most Americans can place; but what shall we say of Ammonoosuc, Wampanoag, and such like, then adorning our lists, which seem as though extracted by a fine-tooth comb drawn through the tangle of Indian nomenclature. Under the succeeding administration Piscataqua was changed to Delaware. The new commander-in-chief was among our most popular officers, distinguished alike for seamanship, courage, and courtesy; but he held to great secrecy as to his intentions, which caused officers more inconvenience than seemed always quite necessary. Questions of mess-stores, of correspondence, and other pre-arrangements, depend much upon knowledge of future movements, as exact as may not interfere with service emergencies. These in peace times rarely require concealment. A characteristic story ran that, as the two vessels were leaving Kobé, when the flag-ship's anchor was a-weigh, her captain, still ignorant of her destination, turned to the admiral and said, "Which way shall I lay her head, sir?"
It turned out that we were bound to Nagasaki, on our way to China. The approaching northeast monsoon, with its dry, bracing air, dictates the period when foreign squadrons usually go south, having during the summer in Japan avoided the debilitating damp heat which those months entail in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the Chinese ports generally. The Iroquois, however, had soon to separate from the flag-ship, owing to news received of a singular occurrence, savoring more of two hundred years ago, or of to-day's dime novel—"shilling shocker," as our British brethren have it—than of the prosaic nineteenth century. There had arrived at Hakodate, the northernmost of the then open Japanese ports, on the island of Yezo and Strait of Tsugaru, a mysterious bark, without name or papers, peopled only by Chinese of the coolie class, and bearing evident marks of foul play. From indications she was supposed to be American, and our ship, being the most immediately available, was ordered up to investigate; leaving Nagasaki October 24, 1868. Our course took us over the ground which has since become historic by the destruction of Rodjestvensky's fleet, as well as by other incidents of the Russo-Japanese war; and the weather we had, both going and returning, would justify the anxiety said to have been felt by the Japanese naval authorities, that Port Arthur should be taken before the winter set in. Like men, ships must do their work at whatever cost; but like men also, and perhaps even more, they should be spared needless strain, especially if they be few. A sick ship needs usually more time for recovery than a sick man.
Our orders directed a stop at a port called Niigata, on the west coast of Nippon. We must have communicated, for I thence despatched a letter; but at the time of our arrival a furious northwest gale was blowing, dead on shore. The ship, therefore, ran under a largish island called Sado, which much to our convenience lies a few miles to sea-ward of Niigata, and there anchored; quietly enough as to wind, though gusty willy-waws descending from the cliffs and swishing the water in petty whirlwinds testified to the commotion outside. We had quite the same experience returning to Shanghai; but at that time in mid-sea, where the Iroquois, powerless as to steam, but otherwise as much at home as the sea-fowl, rode it out gleefully, though I admit not luxuriously to flesh and muscles.
On November 1st we reached Hakodate, where our captain and consul, aided by the Japanese authorities, proceeded at once with their investigation. The strange vessel was in as distressed condition, almost, as that of the Ancient Mariner when he drew near "his own countree:" sails gone, rigging flying loose, one of her topgallant masts, if I remember right, snapped in two, and the exterior of her hull as though neither paint nor soap had known it for years. In her cabins were marks of blood not eradicated; and particularly on the transom over the stern windows was the print of a bloody hand, the fingers spread wide as they rested against the paint, suggesting resistance by one being thrust out. The story so far collected from the coolies was that they had sailed in her from Macao, a Portuguese port near Canton and Hong Kong, and that the captain and crew, after taking her far north in the ice, had abandoned her altogether. In support of this part of their story they showed furs procured from the natives. These gave plausibility to the ice experiences; but the rest of the account, unlikely in itself, had been disproved by inquiry in Macao, where nothing was known of any vessel answering to the descriptions. At last, however, a rumor had come, how conveyed I know not, that such a bark, with coolies and twelve thousand dollars in gold on board, had sailed from Callao, in Peru, the previous January, and had never since been heard from; that she had a Peruvian captain and crew, but carried American colors, probably merely as indicating American property. To claim full American privilege, ships must be American built; but one bought abroad and owned by Americans may carry the flag, in proof of nationality, though without the right of entering an American port like those to the manner born. They thus become entitled to the same national regard as any other possessions of American citizens under foreign jurisdiction.
So information stood when the Iroquois arrived—false on one hand, and on the other vague. Soon after the captain and consul began their investigation they stumbled upon the vessel's papers, concealed in a manner which had hitherto baffled careful search. These showed that she was the missing Cayalti, which on the previous January 18th had cleared from Callao for another Peruvian port; that she was American in ownership, while the captain and crew were Spanish in name. This fixed her identity; but how account for the disappearance of the ship's company, and for her presence in Hakodate, on the other side of the Pacific, three thousand miles north of Callao. To this inquiry the captain and consul addressed themselves in the cabin of the Iroquois. Two or three Japanese two-sworded officials were in attendance, and memory recalls their grave, impassive faces, as seen at times when some routine communication called me in to speak to our captain.
Contracted though the captain's quarters were, the unaccustomed scene, absent from their companions and from the familiar surroundings of their probable crime, was calculated to impress the culprits; and the methods pursued to instigate admissions savored, I fancy, more of the Orient than of modern Anglo-Saxon ideals. But the present functions of our officials corresponded to those of the French juges d'instruction; and, having to elicit the truth from a low class of Orientals, they dealt with them after the fashion which alone they would recognize as serious. The witnesses began, of course, by lying in the most transparent manner, but under judicious—or judicial—pressure a story was pieced together which in main outline probably corresponded with the truth; for in it three or four of them independently agreed. Two days out from Callao the coolies had risen against the whites, and after a short fight overpowered them. Of the crew, two jumped overboard; the rest submitted. A boat was then lowered, and the men in the water were killed; after which the others were tied together, made fast to an anchor, and so thrown into the sea, the mate, who had fought desperately, having first been mutilated by cutting off his ears. The captain and a Chinese steward were saved; the former to handle the ship, to which the coolies were unequal, and he was bidden to take her to China. I do not find in my contemporary letters the impression which remains on my mind, that they estimated his general observance of this order by the vague knowledge that China lay towards the evening sun. The history of that strange voyage would be interesting, but was scarcely recoverable in detail from the class of witnesses. It would be by no means certain that the master of a coastwise trader could navigate accurately; and, while he would always be sure of death if he brought the vessel within reach of China, it is not apparent why he should take her to the remote north in which the furs showed her to have been. I have never heard whether, as the evidence ran, he and the steward escaped alive, abandoning the ship.[14] He had disappeared when the Japanese found her drifting helplessly under her ignorant occupants.
While in Hakodate, I availed myself of the opportunity to visit a great lake and a volcano, not extinct, but not immediately active. They are distant about fifteen miles from the town, a position in which I see such a sheet of water on the maps of to-day. This was a long ride in the then state of the roads, after the autumn rains, and with nightly freeze sufficient continually to fix the moisture, and then to renew the dampness towards the noonday thaw. Transport was not by wheel, but by pack-animals; and as these marched in companies of a half-dozen or so, in single file, haltered one to the other, each as he stepped put his foot into the prints made, not merely by his immediate file-leader of the particular gang, but by all others going and coming for weeks before. The consequence was a succession of scallops, distributed over long stretches of mud, the consistency of which just sufficed to hold the shape thus impressed upon it. Japanese horses are small, and as a class quarrelsome; the one I rode on this occasion was little larger than a child's pony, and looked as if he had not been curried for a month. I hesitated to impose upon him my weight, a scruple which would have been intensified had I known the character of the pilgrimage through which he was to bear me. With his feet at the bottom of the scallop, the rounded top rose above his knee, nearly giving his patient nose the touch which his dejected mood and drooping head seemed to invite. At the first start he stumbled, nearly falling on me, but escaped with nostrils and mouth full of liquid dirt.