CHAPTER V—The Coasts of Nippon
At once I set about perfecting myself in certain practices which so far had afforded me little more than idle amusement. The knack of holding on a Japanese clog or the lighter sandal by gripping the thong that passes between the great toe and its mate is not acquired at the first trial or at many to follow. Still more difficult is the ability to sit for hours, crouched on knees and heels, in the Japanese fashion. I practised both feats with a patient endurance born of intense desire. Yoritomo had suffered as great inconvenience while learning to wear Occidental dress and to sit on chairs.
There were many other accomplishments, hardly less irksome, in which I had to drill myself, that I might be prepared to play the rôle of a Japanese gentleman. For recreation between times, I devoted my odd hours to cutlass fencing with an expert maître d’armes and to pistol practice. For this last I purchased a brace of Lefaucheux revolvers, which, though a trifle inferior to the Colt in accuracy, possessed the advantage of the inventor’s water-proof metallic cartridges. The convenience and superiority of this cartridge over the old style of loading with loose charges of powder and ball only need be mentioned to be realized.
Yoritomo was so desirous of witnessing the outcome of President Bonaparte’s manipulation of politics that we lingered in Paris until the coup d’état which marked the fall of the French Republic and the ascension of Bonaparte to the imperial throne as Napoleon III. Confirmed by this event in his opinion of the instability, violence, and chicanery of Occidental statesmanship, my friend announced his readiness to leave Europe.
The American packets had already brought word of the sailing of Commodore Perry from Newport News on November the twenty-fourth. As his route to China lay around the Cape of Good Hope, there had been no need to hurry away on our shorter passage by the Peninsular and Oriental route across the Isthmus of Suez and down the Red Sea.
We sailed on January the third, 1853, and, confident of our advantage of route, stopped twice on our way, that Yoritomo might study the administration of the British East India Company in Ceylon and India and the Dutch rule in Java. As a result, we did not reach Shanghai until the end of April.
It is in point to mention that during the voyage I gave my friend frequent lessons in Western swordsmanship and in turn received as many from him in Japanese fence, using heavy, two-handed foils of bamboo. Though the Japanese art is without thrusts, I was taught by many a bruise that it possesses clever and powerful cuts.
At Shanghai, we found already assembled three ships of the American squadron, including the huge steam frigate Susquehanna. The Commodore was expected to arrive soon from Hong-kong in the Mississippi.
My plan had been to charter a small vessel, and run across to the Japanese coast, where we hoped to be able to smuggle ourselves ashore, and make our way to Yedo in the disguise of priests. Owing, however, to the alarm of the foreign settlement over the victories of the Taiping rebels in the vicinity of Shanghai, there were few vessels in port and none open to charter.
We were already aware that, under the strict orders of the Navy Department, we could not join the American expedition without subjecting ourselves to the fetters of naval discipline. As a last resort and in the hope of gaining the assent of the Commodore to land us in disguise, we might have considered even this humiliating course. But the very object of Yoritomo’s return to his native shores was to reach Yedo and present his case to the Shogun’s government before the arrival of the foreigners.