On the 26th of November occurred one of the most destructive fires with which Yokohama has ever been visited. One fourth of the foreign settlement and one-third of the native town were laid in ashes. The fire-bell began to ring about nine o'clock in the morning. Willis and I ascended to the look-out on the roof of our house and saw the flames mounting to the sky exactly to windward of us, maybe half a mile away. I rushed into a pair of boots (unluckily my oldest), and putting on my hat, hastened forth to find out the location of the fire. My servants said it was only a few doors off, but when I got that distance it proved to be further away, and I pursued my course for a quarter of an hour before arriving on the scene. From the lower end of a narrow street, usually well crowded but now absolutely crammed with people, there surged along an agitated multitude carrying such of their goods as they had been able to snatch from the devouring element that closely pursued them. I approached as near as I could to the burning houses, but finding that the conflagration was rapidly advancing, beat a hasty retreat and made my way to the open space at the back of the settlement, where a terrible spectacle of confusion presented itself to my eyes. The portion of the native town where the fire was raging most violently was on a small island surrounded by a muddy swamp and connected with the rest of Yokohama by a wooden bridge, already crowded with fugitives; to wade or swim across to the firm ground was impossible. There were one or two boats available, but they were already overcrowded, and their occupants were so paralysed by fear that they never thought of landing and sending back the boats to take off others. Most of the inhabitants of the quarter were women. I saw a few poor wretches plunge into the water in order to escape, but they failed to reach the nearer bank. It was a fearful sight to see the flames darting among the roofs of the houses on the causeway, and sending forth jets here and there where the fire had not yet attained full mastery, when suddenly one half of the street nearest blazed up with a tremendous flash, and a volume of black smoke arose which obscured the sky. This was an oil merchant's shop that had caught fire. I turned and fled homewards, for there was no time to lose. I knew my own house was doomed, as it lay directly to leeward, and a violent wind was blowing from the north-west. As I passed through the little garden I shouted to Willis to bestir himself, and called my servants to assist in packing up my movables. My first thought was for my MS. dictionary; if that went I lost the results of two years' labour. So I put it into a light chest of drawers, and huddled some clothes in from the wardrobe. To get our things out we had to break down the high wooden fence round the garden. At this moment up came some friends, who plunged into the house and reappeared, some with books, others with half a chest of drawers, and we worked with a will until the building was cleared of everything but carpets, curtains, and the heavier furniture. My harmonium, a massive article, was also got into the street, and some men from the garrison carried it away to a place of safety.
By the time we had removed the salvage to what we thought was a respectable distance, the fire had reached the house, which five minutes later was a heap of glowing embers. It now became evident that the houses in the rear of the settlement had caught fire, and as my property was lying on the open space between the foreign and native towns, it had to be transported further. Here occurred a serious loss. Most of my books were in boxes which had been carried out bodily, but the rest, hastily wrapped up in blankets, had to be left. There were plenty of pilferers about, who, under the pretence of helping, carried off chests full of clothing that I never saw again. I lost a good many European volumes and a large number of Japanese books, besides some notes on Manchu and Chinese which were irreplaceable.
After we had deposited our property where we thought it would be in safety, it was threatened by the progress of the flames, and was therefore removed to a godown belonging to our friends Wilkin and Robison at No. 3 in the settlement. By this time the area of destruction had extended to the main street of the native town, and the houses where A. B. Mitford, A. von Siebold, Walsh and Vidal lived, as well as our own, had already gone. A Japanese house lightly built of wood, with paper instead of glass, takes little time to burn. Next the fire spread to the nearest houses in the foreign settlement. Huge sparks and pieces of red hot wood flew across the intervening space, set the American consulate alight, ignited the roof of Jardine, Matheson & Co., and began to spread along both streets of the settlement. The supposed "fireproof" godown where most of our things were deposited caught fire, and nearly everything we had saved was destroyed. It was a scene of the wildest confusion. Bluejackets were landed from the ships, and soldiers came down from the camp to work at the fire engines. There was no discipline among the men, and no organization existed for dealing with the disaster. After the final destruction of my own property I went about helping others to save theirs or to fight the flames, handing buckets, fetching water, pouring it on whatever seemed most inflammable. Some of the redcoats behaved disgracefully. They had managed to get hold of liquor, and stood by drinking and jeering, while we civilians did the work they had been brought there to perform. At the close of the day there remained to me only the clothes I had on my back, and I was hatless. But the excitement had been so lively that I felt rather pleased at the idea of beginning the world afresh. I had saved the manuscript of the English-Japanese dictionary on which Ishibashi and I were then engaged, as well as that of an annotated edition of Sir R. Alcock's Colloquial Japanese, which was then in the press, though destined never to see the light. My loss came to between £300 and £400, a portion of which was afterwards made good to me by Her Majesty's Government. The losses of the insurance offices amounted to $2,800,000, or about £700,000. The value of what was not insured was not great.
The conflagration raged so fiercely among the foreign warehouses and residences that before four o'clock in the afternoon it had made its way half down the bund, leaving only the club-house standing, and at one period it was thought that the whole settlement would be in a blaze before night. If that had happened the European community would have had to seek an asylum on board ship, but fortunately our fears were not realized. The flames seemed invincible by the side of our puny efforts.
The expedient was resorted to of blowing up houses in the line of fire, but not with great success, for some of those so destroyed were never touched by it at all, while in other instances the débris could not be cleared away, and only helped it to spread to the buildings beyond. One hundred and seven Europeans and Americans were rendered homeless, and many of those who had trusted in their so-called fireproof godowns were left without anything in the world but the clothes they stood in. Merchants whose goods were uninsured were devoured by a terrible anxiety, for the most solidly-constructed stone godowns seemed to offer little more resistance than the wooden houses of the Japanese.
Although the wind had fallen, much apprehension was entertained for the safety of what still remained unburnt, for owing to the damaged condition of the hose, all the fire engines had become useless, and nothing could be done to extinguish the smouldering embers. The fire was therefore left to burn itself out, and four days elapsed before the flames entirely died down. The price of clothing rose incredibly, as also did house rent. Yokohama was not as well supplied with hatters, tailors and bootmakers as it is in these days, and most men were in the habit of supplying themselves from home. For the next two years, consequently, I was reduced to a very moderate wardrobe. I had, for example, to pay $4, or 18 shillings, for five pocket handkerchiefs.
After the fire I took up my abode with my friend Tom Foster, then the manager of Gilman & Co.'s Yokohama branch, until the 9th or 10th of December, when I migrated to the Legation at Yedo. The new buildings in front of Sen-gaku-ji were now completed, and enclosed by a lofty black wooden fence which imparted to the establishment somewhat of the aspect of a jail. There were two long wooden buildings, one of which was the minister's residence, the other being occupied by the members of the chancery. Eusden had gone to Hakodaté as acting consul, and the staff consisted of Mitford as second secretary, Willis as assistant accountant and medical officer, Siebold and myself as interpreters, and Vidal as student interpreter. The infantry guard was commanded by Lieutenant Bradshaw. Sidney Locock, the first secretary, a married man with a family, lived at Yokohama, as did also H. S. Wilkinson, still a student. They were "ramshackle" buildings, all windows and doors, terribly cold from want of proper fireplaces and bad construction, which admitted draughts on every side. But I did not live there long.
After my transfer from the Yokohama consulate to the Legation in the autumn of 1866, one of the first matters in which I was able to be of use to our new chief was connected with the wording of the treaty. In the English text the Tycoon was spoken of as "His Majesty," and thus placed on a level with the Queen. In the Japanese version, however, this epithet was rendered by the equivalent of "Highness," and it was thus to be inferred that our sovereign was of lower rank than the Mikado. Moreover, the word "queen" had been translated by a title which was borne by great-grand-daughters of a Mikado. I recommended that a new Japanese version should be made, in which "Majesty" should be rendered by its proper Japanese equivalent, and "Queen" by the word Kôtei (Hwang-ti), usually translated by "Emperor" in all the Chinese-English dictionaries, but really meaning "supreme sovereign," and applicable to both sexes. The preparation of the new version was entrusted to my hands, and with the aid of my teacher I managed in about a month's time to complete an accurate translation, which was adopted as official. It was the keynote of a new policy which recognized the Mikado as the sovereign of Japan and the Tycoon as his lieutenant. We gave up the use of "Tycoon," which my reading had taught me was properly a synonym for the Mikado, in our communications with the Japanese government, though retaining it in correspondence with the Foreign Office, in order not to create confusion, but the most important result was to set in a clearer light than before the political theory that the Mikado was the treaty-making power. As long as his consent had not been obtained to the existing treaties we had no locus standi, while after he had been induced to ratify them, the opposition of the daimiôs ceased to have any logical basis.