Ekichi, like almost all Japanese boys of his class, learned very quickly, nor did the very difficult Chinese characters frighten him. Long before a Chinese boy could have mastered one-half of them, Ekichi could read and understand a book without much difficulty.
He was now growing used to the restraint which was imposed upon him. He began to understand that the word pleasure can have no meaning for a Japanese boy, and then he was made to learn that a boy is better without comforts than with them, except when he is sick. He was taught that there can be and must be but one motive for every action, and that motive must be: duty. Ekichi was but a child, and small for his age; but no boy twice as old in America or Europe, could have shown an equal degree of self-control, and contempt of pain and death with this child.
Japan’s laws were cruel, at this time, and most offenses were punished with death. The criminal was made to kneel down, a flash of the sharp sword, a blow, and the head lay severed from the body. Young as he was, Ekichi was often taken to these executions, to accustom him to the sight of blood. His face was closely watched to see if he showed any emotion, and when he came home from these disagreeable sights, he found his rice of the color of blood, for it had been colored on purpose with the juice of salted plums. He was expected to eat heartily of this dish, and, like other samurai boys, did so without the nauseous feelings which our boys would experience under the circumstances. Sometimes, at midnight, he was roused from a sound slumber, and ordered to go to the execution ground, and bring a head. There was no refusal possible. Whatever he might think privately of such an errand, there was but one answer possible, a responsive hai! “yes,” and immediate obedience. Thus Ekichi, as all other Japanese boys of his class, was indifferent to heat or cold, and forgot that there was such a thing as “fear.” He was not quite twelve, when he was given two real swords, sharp, keen blades, made for use and not for show. He was taught that “the sword is the soul of the samurai,” or, in the words of the law as it then prevailed in Japan[42]: “The girded sword is the living soul of the samurai. In the case of a samurai forgetting his sword, act as is appointed: it may not be forgiven.”
The child never considered his swords as toys; to him they were objects of reverence; that little dirk, eight inches long, might at some time be used to end his own life. He learned how he should behave and act, if ever such a moment should come. There is an instance in Japanese history, when a samurai boy only seven years old, committed suicide that he might save his father. Such stories were told him constantly, and roused his enthusiasm. At no time, after he was twelve years old, would Ekichi have hesitated to take his own life, if he had thought it his duty.
At this age he divided his time between shooting with bow and arrow, riding, fencing and wrestling, and the study of Chinese. He learned to swim and to handle a boat, and as he grew stronger, all dainties and comforts were taken away. If, in winter, his hands became numb, he was told to rub them in snow or water to make them warm; but he was not allowed the use of a fire. The duty of implicit obedience had been planted in him. No Japanese boy would think of asking why? when ordered to do something. Last of all he became master of that exceeding courtesy, peculiar to Japanese gentlemen, and which we foreigners cannot appreciate.
VII
KANO’S JOURNEY TO YEDO
The 1st of July, 1859, had come and gone, and the barbarians had been admitted into the Country of the Gods. They were only a handful; so few that Choshiu’s samurai could have pushed them into the bay by sheer force of numbers. While the Japanese people continued to toil, and cared nothing if there were any barbarians in the country or not, the samurai were getting more and more angry. Still, there was much curiosity mixed with this anger. The barbarians were so few in number; how could the Tokugawa, able to call an army of 80,000 men under arms, be afraid of them.
That puzzled Choshiu’s councillors. They had not succeeded in their attempts to obtain books and a teacher at Nagasaki, and it had been decided that another effort should be made at Yokohama. This time the enterprise was thought so important, that it was determined to send one of the councillors, and the choice fell upon Kano. He accepted the commission.