A Coolie with Straw Raincoat

Thunberg, as we have seen, could hear nothing of semi-Dutch children born in Japan. There were such, however, in Doeff’s time; and it appears, from an incidental remark of his, that although no birth was allowed to take place at Deshima, yet that the Japanese female inmates of the factory were permitted to nurse their infants in the houses of their Dutch fathers. At a very early age, however, these children were taken away to be educated as pure Japanese, being allowed to visit their fathers only at certain specified intervals. The fathers, however, were expected to provide for them, and to obtain for them, by purchase, some government office.

CHAPTER XLIII

Golownin’s Capture and Imprisonment—Conveyance to Hakodate—Reception and Imprisonment—Interpreters—Interviews with the Governor—Removal to Matsumae—A Pupil in Russian—A Japanese Astronomer—Escape and Recapture—Treatment afterwards—Savans from Yedo—Japanese Science—European News—A Japanese Free-thinker—Soldiers—Their Amusements—Thoughts on a Wedding—Domestic Arrangements—New Year—Return of the “Diana”—Reprisals—A Japanese Merchant and his Female Friend—Second Return of the “Diana”—Third Return of the “Diana”—Interview on Shore—Surrender of the Prisoners—Japanese Notification—The Merchant at Home—The Merchant Class in Japan—A.D. 1811-1813.

While, by the first interruption of the communication with Batavia, Doeff and his companions were secluded at Deshima, a number of Europeans were held in a still stricter imprisonment at the northern extremity of Japan.

Captain Golownin, an educated and intelligent Russian naval officer, had been commissioned in 1811, as commander of the sloop of war “Diana,” to survey the southern Kurile Islands, in which group the Russians include both Sakhalin and Yezo, which they reckon as the twenty-first and twenty-second Kuriles. At the southern extremity of Etorofu, the nineteenth Kurile, some Japanese were first met with (July 13). Soon after, Golownin, with two officers, four men, and a Kurile interpreter, having landed at a bay on the southern end of Kunashiri, the twentieth Kurile, where the Japanese had a settlement and a garrison, they were invited into the fort, and made prisoners. Thence they were taken, partly by water and partly by land, to Hakodate, already mentioned as a Japanese town at the southern extremity of Yezo. This journey occupied four weeks, in which, by Golownin’s calculation, they travelled between six and seven hundred miles. The Japanese stated it at two hundred and fifty-five of their leagues. The route followed was along the east coast of the island. Every two miles or so there was a populous village, from all of which extensive fisheries were carried on, evidently the great business of the inhabitants. The fish were caught in great nets, hundreds at once. The best were of the salmon species, but every kind of marine animal was eaten. The gathering of sea-weeds for food (of the kind called by the Russians sea-cabbage[91]) also constituted a considerable branch of industry. In the northern villages the inhabitants were principally native Kuriles, with a few Japanese officers. Within a hundred and twenty or thirty miles of Hakodate the villages were inhabited entirely by Japanese, and were much larger and handsomer than those further north, having gardens and orchards, and distinguished by their scrupulous neatness; but even the Kurile inhabitants of Yezo were far superior in civilization and comforts to those of the more northern islands belonging to Russia.

When first seized by the Japanese, the Russians were bound with cords, some about the thickness of a finger, and others still smaller. They were all tied exactly alike (according to the prescribed method for binding those arrested on criminal charges), the cords for each having the same number of knots and nooses, and all at equal distances. There were loops round their breasts and necks; their elbows were drawn almost into contact behind their backs, and their hands were firmly bound together. From these fastenings proceeded a long cord, the end of which was held by a Japanese, who, on the slightest attempt to escape, had only to pull it to make the elbows come in contact with great pain, and so to tighten the noose about the neck as almost to produce strangulation. Their legs were also tied together above the ankles and above the knees. Thus tied, they were conveyed all the way to Hakodate, having the choice, for the land part of the route, either to be carried in a rude sort of palanquin formed of planks, on which they were obliged to lie flat, or to walk, which they generally preferred as less irksome, and for which purpose the cords about the ankles were removed, and those above the knees loosened. The cords were drawn so tight as to be very painful, and even after a while to cut into the flesh; yet, though in all other respects the Japanese seemed inclined to consult the comfort of the prisoners, they would not, for the first six or seven days, be induced to loosen them, of which the chief reason turned out to be their apprehension lest the prisoners might commit suicide,—that being the Japanese resource under such extremities.

Their escort consisted of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred men. Two Japanese guides from the neighboring villages, changed at each new district, led the way, bearing handsomely-carved staves. Then came three soldiers, then Captain Golownin with a soldier on one side, and on the other an attendant with a twig to drive off the gnats, which were troublesome, and against which his bound hands prevented him from defending himself. Behind came an officer holding the ends of the ropes by which the prisoner was bound, then a party of Kuriles, bearing his kago, followed by another relief party. The other captives followed, one by one, escorted in the same manner. Finally came three soldiers, and a number of Japanese and Kurile servants carrying provisions and baggage. Each of the escort had a wooden tablet, suspended from his girdle, on which were inscribed his duties and which prisoner he was stationed with; and the commanding officer had a corresponding list of the whole. The prisoners had the same fare with the escort,—three meals a day, generally of rice boiled to a thick gruel, two pieces of pickled radish[92] for seasoning, soup made of radishes or various wild roots and herbs, a kind of macaroni, and a piece of broiled or boiled fish. Sometimes they had stewed mushrooms, and each a hard-boiled egg. Their general drink was very indifferent tea, without sugar, and sometimes sake. Their conductors frequently stopped at the villages to rest, or to drink tea and smoke tobacco, and they also rested for an hour after dinner. They halted for the night an hour or two before sunset, usually in a village with a small garrison. They were always conducted first to the front of the house of the officer in command, and were seated on benches covered with mats, when the officer came out to inspect them. They were then taken to a neat house (which generally, when they first entered, was hung round with striped cotton cloth), and were placed together in one apartment, the ends of their ropes being fastened to iron hooks in the walls. Their boots and stockings were pulled off, and their feet bathed in warm water with salt in it. For bedding they had the Japanese mattresses—quilts with a thick wadding—folded double.

After the first six or seven days their bonds were loosened, and they got on more comfortably. The Japanese took the greatest care of their health, not allowing them to wet their feet, carrying them across the shallowest streams, and furnishing them with quilted Japanese gowns as a protection against the rain.