A Diplomat in Japan. Ernest Mason Satow
and even proposed to divert the trains of the daimiôs to another route which ran through the town of Atsugi, but this project fell through. Foreigners were in the habit of using it for their excursions, but Robertson and I had to pass along it twice a week on our way to and from our Japanese lesson at Mr. Brown's, and though determined not to show the white feather, I always felt in passing one of these trains that my life was in peril. On one occasion as I was riding on the Tôkaidô for my pleasure, I met a tall fellow armed with the usual two swords, who made a step towards me in what I thought was a threatening manner, and having no pistol with me, I was rather alarmed, but he passed on, content probably with having frightened a foreigner. That is the only instance I can recollect of even seeming intention on the part of a samurai to do me harm on a chance meeting in the street, and the general belief in the bloodthirsty character of that class, in my opinion, was to a very great extent without foundation. But it must be admitted that whenever a Japanese made up his mind to shed the blood of a foreigner, he took care to do his business pretty effectually.
My first experience of an earthquake was on the 2nd November of this year. It was said by the foreign residents to have been a rather severe one. The house shook considerably, as if some very heavy person were walking in list slippers along the verandah and passages. It lasted several seconds, dying away gradually, and gave me a slight sensation of sickness, insomuch that I was beginning to fancy that a shaking which lasted so long must arise from within myself. I believe the sensations of most persons on experiencing a slight shock of earthquake for the first time are very similar. It is usually held that familiarity with these phenomena does not breed contempt for them, but on the contrary persons who have resided longest in Japan are the most nervous about the danger. And there is a reason for this. We know that in not very recent times extremely violent shocks have occurred, throwing down houses, splitting the earth, and causing death to thousands of people in a few moments. The longer the interval that has elapsed since the last, the sooner may its re-occurrence be looked for. We have escaped many times, but the next will be perhaps our last. So we feel on each occasion, and the anticipation of harm becomes stronger and stronger, and where we at first used to sit calmly through a somewhat prolonged vibration, the wooden joints of the house harshly creaking and the crockery rattling merrily on the shelves, we now spring from our chairs and rush for the door at the slightest movement.
My experiences in Japan of an exciting kind were pretty numerous, but, I regret to say, never included a really serious earthquake, and those who care to read more about the insignificant specimens that the country produces now-a-days must be referred to the pages of the Seismological Society's Journal and other publications of the distinguished geologist, my friend Professor John Milne, who has not only recorded observations on a large number of natural earthquakes, but has even succeeded in producing artificial ones so closely resembling the real thing as almost to defy detection.
CHAPTER VI
OFFICIAL VISIT TO YEDO
During the later months of 1862 a good deal of correspondence went forward about the Itô Gumpei (murderer of the sentry and of the corporal) affair and the Richardson murder, and Colonel Neale held various conferences with the Shôgun's ministers. The diplomatic history of these proceedings has been already recounted by Sir Francis Adams, and as for the most part I knew little of what was going on, it need not be repeated here. The meeting-place for the more important discussions was Yedo, whither the Colonel used to proceed with his escort and the larger portion of the Legation staff. Some went by a gunboat, others rode up to the capital along the Tôkaidô. At that period and for several years after, the privilege of visiting Yedo was by Treaty restricted to the foreign diplomatic representatives, and non-official foreigners could not cross the Rokugô ferry, half way between Kanagawa and Yedo, except as the invited guest of one of the legations. And now all the foreign ministers had transferred their residences to Yokohama in consequence of the danger which menaced them at Yedo. We younger members, therefore, appreciated highly our opportunities, and it was with intense delight that I found myself ordered to accompany the chief early in December on one of his periodical expeditions thither. We started on horseback about one o'clock in the afternoon in solemn procession, the party consisting of Colonel Neale, A von Siebold, Russell Robertson, and myself, with Lieutenant Applin commanding the mounted escort. It was a miserably cold day, but R. and I combated the temperature by dropping behind to visit Mr. Brown on our way through Kanagawa, and then galloping on after the others. They had evidently been going at a foot's pace during the interval. At Kawasaki we encountered an obstruction in the shape of an obstinate head ferryman, who did not recognize the British Chargé d'Affaires, and refused to pass us over. The men on guard at the watch-house commanding the ferry, on seeing some of us approach to demand their assistance, ran away. The Colonel fumed with wrath, but fortunately at this moment there arrived in breathless haste a mounted officer from Kanagawa, who had followed us of his own accord on hearing that the English Chargé d'Affaires had passed without a Japanese escort. So the ferryman collected his men, and we got over without further trouble. A couple of miles beyond the river we came to the well-known gardens called Mmé Yashiki, the plum-orchard, where we were waited on by some very pretty girls. Everybody who travelled along the Tôkaidô in those days, who had any respect for himself, used to stop here, in season or out of season, to drink a cup of straw-coloured tea, smoke a pipe and chaff the waiting-maids. Fish cooked in various ways and warm saké (rice beer) were also procurable, and red-faced native gentlemen might often be seen folding themselves up into their palanquins after a mild daylight debauch. Europeans usually brought picnic baskets and lunched there, but even if they started late were glad of any excuse for turning in to this charmingly picturesque tea-garden. Everyone now-a-days is familiar with the Japanese plum-tree as it is represented in the myriad works of art of these ingenious people, but you must see the thing itself to understand what a joyful surprise it is to enter the black-paled enclosure crowded with the oddly angular trees, utterly leafless but covered with delicate pink or white blossoms which emit a faint fragrance, and cover the ground with the snow of their fallen petals. It is early in February that they are in their glory, on a calm day when the sun shines with its usual brilliance at that season, while in every shady corner you may find the ground frozen as hard as a stone. But to my taste the plum-blossom looks better on a cloudy day against a dull background of cryptomeria when you sit by a warm fire and gaze on it out of window. In December, however, only the swelling buds are to be seen stretching along the slender shoots of last spring. We proceeded on our way without any special incident until we reached the notorious suburb of Shinagawa, half consisting of houses, or rather palaces, of ill-fame, where a drunken fellow who stood in the middle of the road and shouted at us got a fall from one of the troopers, and so we reached the Legation about sunset. The rest of the staff and the infantry guard, who had come by sea, landed about an hour later.
The building occupied as the legation was part of a Buddhist temple, Tô-zen-ji, behind which lay a large cemetery. But our part of it had never been devoted to purposes of worship. Every large temple in Japan has attached to it a suite of what we might call state apartments, which are used only on ceremonial occasions once or twice in the year, but from time immemorial it has been the custom to accommodate foreign embassies in these buildings. A suitable residence for a foreign representative could not otherwise have been found in Yedo. As a general rule every Japanese, with the exception of the working classes, lives in his own house, instead of renting it as do most residents in an European capital. The only purely secular buildings large enough to lodge the British Minister and his staff were the Yashiki or "hotels" of Daimiôs, but the idea of expropriating one of these nobles in order to accommodate a foreign official was probably never mooted. There remained, therefore, only the "state apartments" of some large monastery as a temporary residence until a site could be obtained and the necessary buildings constructed. Consequently there was no ground for the reproach which one writer at least has urged against the foreign ministers, that by turning sacred edifices into dwelling-houses they had insulted the religious feelings of the Japanese people. In the early years of our intercourse with Japan it is true that we were regarded as unwelcome "intruders," but in native opinion we "polluted" the temples by our presence no more than we should have "polluted"