The promontory of Idzu loomed into view on the hazy morning of the 7th, and Rock island—now crowned by a lighthouse, and connected by telephone with the shore and with Yokohama, but then bare—was passed. Cape Sagami was reached at noon, and at 3 o’clock the ships had begun to get within range of the forts that crowned or ridged the headlands of the promontory. The weather cleared and the cone of Fuji, in a blaze of glory, rose peerless to the skies.
Cautiously the ships rounded the cape, when from one of the forts there rose in the air a rocket-signal. “Japanese day fire-works” are now common enough at Coney Island. Made of gunpowder and wolf dung, they are fired out of upright bamboo-bound howitzers made of stout tree trunks. The “shell” exploded high in air forming a cloud of floating dust. The black picture stained the sky for several minutes. It was a signal to the army lying in the ravines, and a notice, repeated at intervals, to the court at Yedo. The expected Perry had “sailed into the Sea of Sagami and into Japanese history.”
In the afternoon, the first steamers ever seen in Japanese waters, dropped anchor off Uraga. As previously ordered, by diagram of the Commodore, the ships formed a line broadside to the shore. The ports were opened, and the loaded guns run out. Every precaution was taken to guard against surprise from boats, by fire-junks, or whatever native ingenuity should devise against the big “black ships.”
The first signal made from the flag-ship was this, “Have no communication with the shore, have none from the shore.” The night passed quietly and without alarms. Only the boom of the temple bells, the glare of the camp-fires, and the dancing of lantern lights told of life on the near land. This is the view from the American decks. Let us now picture the scene from the shore, as native eyes saw it.
| [25] | The Japan Expedition, New York, 1855 |
CHAPTER XXX.
THE FIRE-VESSELS OF THE WESTERN BARBARIANS.
Among the many names of their beautiful country, the Japanese loved none more than that of “Land of Great Peace,”—a breath of grateful repose after centuries of war. The genius of Iyéyasŭ had, in the seventeenth century, won rest, and nearly a quarter of a millennium of quiet followed. The fields trampled down by the hoof of the war-horse and the sandal of the warrior had been re-planted, the sluices and terraces repaired, and seed time and harvest passed in unintermitting succession. The merchant bought and sold, laid up tall piles of gold kobans, and thanked Daikokŭ and Amida for the blessings of wealth and peace. The shop keeper held a balance of two hundred rios against the day of devouring fire or wasting sickness, or as a remainder for his children after the expenses of his funeral. The artisan toiled in sunny content, and at daily prayer, thanked the gods that he was able to rear his family in peace. Art and literature flourished. The samurai, having no more use for his sword, yet ever believing it to be “his soul,” wore it as a memento of the past and guard for the future. He lounged in the tea-houses disporting with the pretty girls; or if of studious tastes, he fed his mind, and fired his heart with the glories of Old Japan. As for the daimiōs, they filled up the measure of their existence, alternately at Yedo, and in their own dominions, with sensual luxury, idle amusement, or empty pomp. All, all was profound peace. The arrows rusted in the arsenals, or hung glittering in vain display, made into screens or designs on the walls. The spears stood useless on their butts in the vestibules, or hung in racks over the doors hooded in black cloth. The match-locks were bundled away as curious relics of war long distant, and for ever passed away. The rusty cannon lay unmounted in the castle yards, where the snakes and the rats made nests and led forth their troops of young for generations.
Upon this scene of calm—the calm of despotism—broke the vision of “the black ships at Uraga.” At this village, long noted for its Midzu-amé or rice-honey, the Japanese were to have their first taste of modern civilization. Its name, given nine, perhaps eleven centuries before, was auspicious, though they knew it not. The Chinese characters, sounded Ura-ga, mean “Coast Congratulation.” At first a name of foreboding, it was to become a word of good cheer!
“The fire-vessels of the western barbarians are coming to defile the Holy Country,” said priest and soldier to each other on the afternoon of the third day of the sixth month of Kayéi, in the reign of the Emperor Koméi. The boatman at his sculls and the junk sailor at the tiller gazed in wonder at the painted ships of the western world. The farmer, standing knee deep in the ooze of the rice fields, paused to gaze, wondering whether the barbarians had harnessed volcanoes. With wind blowing in their teeth and sails furled, the monsters curled the white foam at their front, while their black throats vomited sparks and smoke. To the gazers at a distance, as they looked from their village on the hill tops, the whole scene seemed a mirage created, according to their childhood’s belief, by the breath of clams. The Land of Great Peace lay in sunny splendor. The glorious cone of Fuji capped with fleecy clouds of white, never looked more lovely. Even the great American admiral must surely admire the peerless mountain.[[26]] The soldiers in the fort on the headlands, obeying orders, would forbear to fire lest the fierce barbarians should begin war at once. The rocket signal would alarm great Yedo. The governor at Uraga would order the foreigners to Nagasaki. Would they obey? The bluff whence the Morrison had been fired upon years before, once rounded, would the barbarians proceed further up the bay? Suspense was short. The great splashing of the wheels ceased. As the imposing line lay within an arrow’s range, off the shore, the rattling of the anchor-chains was heard even on land. The flukes gripped bottom at the hour of the cock (5 p. m.)