A Diplomat in Japan / The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period

by Ernest Mason Satow

Many of the houses bore a notice-paper inscribed with Chinese characters meaning "Economy in all things," a laconic sentence which was interpreted to signify that the occupants had forsworn social entertainments and other unnecessary sources of expenditure. Wirgman made himself very popular by the sketches he threw off and gave away to the innkeepers, sometimes of ourselves as we appeared on the road, or of a bit of local scenery, or perhaps a pretty girl, whose bashful pride on discovering that her features had been perpetuated on paper was a pleasant sight to contemplate. It usually took some time before the waiting maids overcame what seemed to us to be their excessive modesty, but it was explained to us that women were not usually permitted to approach the dais-room, as noble swells had their own men-servants to attend on them. We regretted the exigencies of our lofty position, and pitied the daimiôs who have always to be correct and proper—in public. Another consequence of our supposed high rank was that in many towns the people knelt down by the side of the street as we passed along, being invited to assume that posture by the municipal officers who preceded us beadle-fashion, crying out Shitaniro, shitaniro ("down, down"). This honour used in those days to be rendered to every daimiô, no matter whether travelling in his own dominions or those of another nobleman, and also to the high officials of the Shôgun's government, as, for example, the governor of Kanagawa, to the great indignation of the European residents. The only reported instance of a foreigner ever submitting to this indignity was that of Mr Eugene van Reed, who is said to have fallen in with the train of Shimadzu Saburô on the day fatal to poor Richardson, and to have then and there conformed to the native custom. The practice had its origin, perhaps, in the necessity of protecting the nobles from sudden attack, combined with the rule of Japanese etiquette which considers that a standing posture implies disrespect. This latter fact was forcibly impressed on me at Fuchiû, where I went to visit the public school for the sons of samurai. Having taken off my shoes and laid my hat on the floor at the entrance, I was escorted into a room where about thirty youngsters were squatting on the floor, with Chinese books before them which they were learning to repeat by rote from the mouths of older and more advanced pupils, under the superintendence of half-a-dozen professors. I bowed and remained standing, but to my surprise no one acknowledged my salute; I had in my ignorance of propriety assumed what to the Japanese appeared an attitude of disrespect, and it was only on being admonished by one of the escort that I discovered my error, which being at once repaired, the professors returned my bow, made in proper form with head to the ground. I afterwards found it necessary to adopt Japanese manners, as far as was compatible with a certain stiff-jointedness that forbade my sitting on my heels for more than a very limited period, but could never resist the uneasy feeling that while I was pressing my forehead on the mats, the man opposite might perhaps be taking advantage of the opportunity to inflict a slight on the "barbarian" by sitting bolt upright. In fact, Japanese themselves were not exempt from a similar uncertainty, and they might sometimes be detected, whilst performing the obeisance, in the act of squinting sideways to ascertain whether the person they were saluting lowered his head simultaneously and to the same level.

Whenever we passed through a town of any importance, the population turned out en masse, eager to convert the occasion into a holiday. At Kaméyama, for instance, which is a daimiô's castle town, the streets were thronged with samurai and their children in gala dress, presenting a gay appearance; some of the young girls were extremely pretty, in spite of the quantity of white powder with which fashion condemned them to bedaub their faces.

Some odd methods of locomotion were practised in this part of the country, such as children riding in nets of coarse cord suspended from opposite ends of a pole carried by a man on his shoulder, women riding in pairs on packhorses, and in the flat plain between Séki and Kuwana in small open omnibuses, not unlike the costermonger's carts in which fruit is hawked about the streets of London, but drawn by a man instead of a donkey; perhaps half-a-dozen grown-up persons in one of these small vehicles, the precursors of the jinrikisha which came into vogue in 1869. Wirgman, who was too careless of his dignity (for he was travelling not as an artist, but in the quality of a yakunin or government official), insisted in getting into one of these, and rode all the way from Tomida to Kuwana, a distance of at least five miles, for three tempôes, say 2-1/2d. At a tea-house at Komuki we were presented by our host with some teapots of very inferior Banko ware; this is the famous unglazed pottery moulded by hand, and showing all over its surface, both inside and outside, the marks of finger tips.

On the 22nd we reached Kuwana, a large town belonging to one of the principal hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa family. Here an enormous concourse of people had collected to see us make our entry, and we had some difficulty in making our way through the crush, until suddenly the procession turned aside through a gateway under a tower, and traversed the outer enceinte of the castle, finally arriving at the official inn on the shore of the bay. Dealers in Banko ware, curious stones from Mino and fans from Nagoya came flocking in, and the evening was passed in bargaining.

The stage from Kuwana to Miya is by sea, across the head of the bay of Owari. Nowadays (1887) people perform the journey by steamer, but in 1867 we had to content ourselves with a rather dirty boat, roofed in with planks. We left at half-past seven and arrived at the termination of our voyage a little after eleven, but as the distance is estimated at seven ri or 17-1/2 miles, we were precluded from going further that day. I proposed, therefore, to devote the afternoon to visiting Nagoya, of which Miya is little more than a suburb.

It boasts a castle founded by Nobunaga towards the end of the sixteenth century. It is famous throughout Japan for two huge golden dolphins which surmount the donjon tower, and is one of the finest extant specimens of that sort of architecture. But the foreign department officials had no instructions to let us deviate from the high road, and did not venture to take on themselves the responsibility for making other arrangements. They promised, of course, to see the governor of the town, and ask him to get permission which they represented was required before they could take us into the castle town of a great noble like the Prince of Owari, but it was all fudge. Shopkeepers flocked in laden with fans, metal work, lacquered porcelain and crape, with which we occupied the interval till an answer should be received from the authorities at Nagoya. A report of Wirgman's skill with the brush having spread, he was overwhelmed with quantities of Chinese paper and fans which, our host said, had been brought by the leading inhabitants who desired specimens of his art, and I wrote mottoes to his productions. The saké bottle furnished us with the necessary inspiration. But we found out at last that the fans thus decorated were being sold outside at an ichibu a piece, and refused to be imposed on any further.

In the evening we had in some singing and dancing girls, and having got ourselves up in native costume, invited the two foreign office clerks and some of our escort to join the party. One or two of the latter became so merry that they could not resist a temptation to perform buffoon dancing, and Sano, the biggest and most good-humoured, gave imitations of famous actors. We did not get rid of our guests until nine o'clock, by which time they had taken a good quantity of saké on board.

In passing through Arimatsu on the following day, famous for cotton shibori, dyed in the same way as the Indian bandhana, we called at the shop where the heads of the Dutch factory at Nagasaki had been in the habit of stopping from time immemorial on the occasion of their annual journeys to Yedo, and were shown a ledger containing records of the purchases made by them year after year. It was a matter of obligation to follow this time-honoured example, and we selected some pieces of the stuff, which oddly enough is called by the name not of the place where it is made, but by that of the last post-town, Narumi. Noguchi and the two foreign department officials did the bargaining, while Wirgman and I looked on and smoked in dignified silence as if we were utterly unconcerned about the prices. The owner of the shop was a distinguished person, evidently invested with a municipal function, in consequence of which he was allowed to have a few stands of matchlocks in his hall. Many of the houses were of more substantial construction than usual, thus testifying to the prosperity conferred by the local manufacture.

At Chiriû the landlord of the inn where we lunched came privately to Noguchi and asked him for four ichibus as "tea money," on the ground that Sir R. Alcock had given that sum in 1861, but his request was refused, and he was forced to content himself with what we had paid elsewhere, namely, half an ichibu. I always left such questions to his discretion, and have no doubt that he acted rightly. In the afternoon when the train stopped as usual to give the palanquin bearers a rest, the people of the tatéba, or half-way tea-house, presented us with buckwheat vermicelli, for which, as they assured us, the place was reputed famous. It was, however, inferior to what I have eaten in other places. Wirgman's fame having preceded him, paper, brushes and ink were brought, and he executed a masterpiece representing us eating vermicelli and drinking saké from a gourd which he had been careful to get replenished at Miya.

The bridge over the Yahagi-gawa being broken down, we crossed the river in a ferry boat, and were met at the entrance of the town by municipal officers and constables, the latter being furnished by the local daimiô, whose function was to walk at the head of the procession and to cry "Down, down." Down went the whole crowd of spectators, including men of the two-sworded class, all the more willingly perhaps because that was the only way they had of bringing their eyes to a level with the windows of our palanquins. For etiquette demanded that we should always ride in entering and quitting a town, the vulgar practice of proceeding on foot being allowable only in the more countryfied portions of the highroad.