A Diplomat in Japan. Ernest Mason Satow
time. Mr, afterwards Sir Frederick, Bruce was then our Minister there, a tall man of about fifty, with a noble forehead and brown eyes, grey beard, whiskers and moustache; altogether a beautiful appearance. The Chinese Secretary was Mr, afterwards Sir Thomas, Wade, a great Chinese scholar, to whom we looked up with awe, and who was said to be of an irascible temper. A story was told of his visiting the Chinese Ministers with the chief, and waxing very warm in argument. The president of the Ts'ung-li Ya-mên remarked: "But, Mr. Wade, I do not observe that Mr. Bruce is so angry." "D'ye hear that, Mr. Bruce, they say you're not angry." Whereupon Mr. Bruce, with a benevolent smile and with the most good-tempered expression in the world, replied: "Oh, tell them I'm in a deuce of a rage."
We, that is to say Jamieson, Robertson and myself, got away early on the morning of August 6, arriving that evening at Ho-si-wu, a town on the way, and reached Tientsin next day. Thence we took boat to Taku, where we passed some days under the hospitable roof of the Vice-Consul Gibson. He was later on transferred to a post in Formosa, where he got into difficulties with the Chinese officials and called on the commander of a gunboat to bombard the Custom House, for which he was smartly reprimanded by the Foreign Office. Shortly afterwards he died, it was said, of a broken heart. This happened in the days when the so-called "gun-boat" policy was no longer in favour, and poor Gibson fell a victim to his excess of zeal.
At Shanghai Jamieson left us, to start a newspaper on terms which promised him a better future than the Consular service could offer. Robertson and I embarked in the steamer Lancefield, and started for Japan on September 2. The first land we sighted after leaving the coast of China was Iwô Shima, a volcanic island to the south of Kiû-shiû, and on the 7th we found ourselves close to Cape Idzu in a fog. Luckily it lifted for a moment, and the captain, who was new to the coast, ordered the ship to be put about, and we ran down among the islands. Next morning early we were steaming over the blue waves east of Vries Island, passed the serrated wooded range of Nokogiri yama on our right and the tiny inlet of Uraga to our left, and stood across the broad bay towards Yokohama. It was one of those brilliant days that are so characteristic of Japan, and as we made our way up the bay of Yedo, I thought no scenery in the world could surpass it. Irregular-shaped hills, covered with dark-green trees, lined the whole southern coast, and above them rose into the air for 12,000 feet and more the magnificent cone of Fuji, with scarcely a patch of snow visible. The noble ranges of Oyama and others bounded the plain on its western side, while by way of contrast, a low-lying sandy coast trended rapidly away on our right, and speedily sank below the horizon in the direction of the capital.
Curious duck-shaped boats of pure unpainted wood, carrying a large four-square sail formed of narrow strips of canvas loosely tacked together, crowded the surface of the sparkling waters. Now and then we passed near enough to note the sunburnt, copper-coloured skins of the fishermen, naked, with the exception of a white cloth round the loins, and sometimes a blue rag tied across the nose, so that you could just see his eyes and chin. At last the white cliffs of Mississippi Bay became closer and more distinct: we rounded Treaty Point and dropped anchor on the outer edge of the shipping. After the lapse of more than a year I had at last attained my cherished object.
CHAPTER II
YOKOHAMA SOCIETY, OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL (1862)
Three years had now elapsed since the opening of the country to foreign trade in consequence of the Treaties of 1858, and a considerable number of merchants had settled at the ports of Nagasaki and Yokohama. Hakodaté, however, offered then, as now, few attractions to mercantile enterprise, and being far removed from the political centre, shared very slightly in the uneasy feeling which prevailed elsewhere. At Nagasaki most of the territorial nobles of Western Japan had establishments whither they sent for sale the rice and other produce received in payment of tribute from the peasants, and their retainers came into frequent contact with foreigners, whose houses they visited for the purchase of arms, gunpowder and steamers. Some sort of friendly feeling thus sprang up, which was increased by the American missionaries who gave instruction in English to younger members of this class, and imparted to them liberal ideas which had no small influence on the subsequent course of events. At Yokohama, however, the foreign merchants had chiefly to do with a class of adventurers, destitute of capital and ignorant of commerce. Broken contracts and fraud were by no means uncommon. Foreigners made large advances to men of straw for the purchase of merchandise which was never delivered, or ordered manufactures from home on the account of men who, if the market fell, refused to accept the goods that would now bring them in only a loss. Raw silk was adulterated with sand or fastened with heavy paper ties, and every separate skein had to be carefully inspected before payment, while the tea could not be trusted to be as good as the sample. Now and then a Japanese dealer would get paid out in kind, but the balance of wrong-doing was greatly against the native, and the conviction that Japanese was a synonym for dishonest trader became so firmly seated in the minds of foreigners that it was impossible for any friendly feeling to exist.
The Custom House officials were in the highest degree corrupt, and demanded ever-increasing bribes from the foreigners who sought to elude the import duties. One of the worst abuses was the importation of large quantities of wines, beer, spirits and stores, for which exemption from the payment of duty was claimed as goods intended for "personal use."
The local administration was carried on by a large staff of officials established at the Custom House. There were two Bugiô, or Governors; two Kumi-gashira, or Vice-Governors; two Metsuké, whose function was that of keeping an eye on the doings of the others; a number of Shirabé-yaku, or Directors; and Jô-yaku, or chief clerks, besides a host of scribes, interpreters, tidewaiters and policemen, in black or green robes. Dutch was the common medium of communication both orally and in writing, for English was as yet scarcely studied by the natives, and the foreigners who could speak Japanese might be counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet all knew a little. A sort of bastard language had been invented for the uses of trade, in which the Malay words peggi and sarampan played a great part, and with the addition of anata and arimasu every one fancied himself competent to settle the terms of a complicated transaction. In this new tongue all the rich variety of Japanese speech, by which the relative social position of the speakers is indicated, and the intricate inflexion of the verbs, were conspicuous by their absence. Outside the settlements it was of course not understood, and its use by Europeans must have contributed not a little to the contempt for the "barbarian" which was characteristic of the native attitude towards foreigners.
By virtue of the treaties Kanagawa had been at first fixed upon for the residence of Europeans, but, lying on the Tôkaidô, or principal highway between Yedo and Kiôto, it was only too well calculated to afford occasion for collision between the armed followers of the Japanese nobles and the foreign settlers. Early in the day the Tycoon's government sought to avoid this difficulty by erecting a Custom House and rows of wooden bungalows at the fishing village of Yokohama, across the shallow bay to the south. Some of the foreign representatives, more intent upon enforcing Treaty provisions than desirous of meeting the convenience of the native officials and the European merchants, strongly opposed this arrangement, but the practical advantages of proximity to the anchorage and personal security won the favour of the merchants, and Yokohama became recognised as the port. Long after, and perhaps to this day, the foreign consuls continued to date their official reports from Kanagawa, though they were safely ensconced at the rival site, where a town of 100,000 inhabitants now exists, and curious stories are told of the difference in freight that used to be earned on goods shipped from Europe to Yokohama or Kanagawa as the case might be.
The foreign settlement, for greater security, was surrounded on the land side by wide canals, across which bridges were thrown, while ingress and egress were controlled by strong guards of soldiers placed there with the double object of excluding dangerous characters and levying a tax on the supplies introduced from the surrounding country. At first land was given away freely to all applicants, some of whom were employés of the different consulates. These latter afterwards sold their lots to new arrivals bent upon commercial pursuits, and thus pocketed gains to which they had no shadow of a right. When further additions were afterwards made to the