Chapter X: Part 10

Unhappily, these cheerful beginnings were the precursors of some very sad events; indeed, tragedies. A week after the New Year ceremonies at Kobe, the American squadron moved over some twelve miles to Osaka, the other opened port, at which our minister then was. Unlike Kobe, where the water permits vessels to lie close to the beach, Osaka is up a river, at the mouth of which is a bar; and, owing to the shoalness of the adjacent sea, the anchorage is a mile or two out. From it the town cannot be seen. The morning after our arrival, a Thursday, it came on to blow very hard from the westward, dead on shore, raising a big sea which prevented boats crossing the bar. The gale continued over Friday, the wind moderating by the following daylight. The swell requires more time to subside; but it was now Saturday, the next day would be Sunday, and the admiral, I think, was a religious man, unwilling to infringe upon the observance of the day, for himself or for the men. His service on the station was up, and, indeed, his time for retirement, at sixty-two, had arrived; there remained for him only to go home, and for this he was anxious to get south. Altogether, he decided to wait no longer, and ordered his barge manned. Danger from the attempt was apprehended on board the flag-ship by some, but the admiral was not one of those who encourage suggestions. Her boatswain had once cruised in whalers, which carry to perfection the art of managing boats in a heavy sea, and of steering with an oar, the safest precaution if a bar must be crossed; and he hung round, in evidence, hoping that he might be ordered to steer her, but she shoved off as for an ordinary trip. The mishap which followed, however, was not that most feared. Just before she entered the breakers, the flag-lieutenant, conscious of the risk, was reported to have said to the admiral, "If you intend to go in before the sea, as we are now running, we had better take off our swords;" and he himself did so, anticipating an accident. As she swept along, her bow struck bottom. Her way being thus stopped for an instant, the sea threw her stern round; she came broadside to and upset. Of the fifteen persons hurled thus into the wintry waves, only three escaped with their lives. Both the officers perished.

The gale continued to abate, and the bodies being all soon recovered, the squadron returned to Kobe to bury its dead. The funeral ceremonies were unusually impressive in themselves, as well as because of the sorrowful catastrophe which so mournfully signalized the entry of the foreigner into his new privilege. The day was fair and cloudless, the water perfectly smooth; neither rain nor wave marred the naval display, as they frequently do. Thirty-two boats, American and British, many of them very large, took part in the procession from the ships to the beach. The ensigns of all the war-vessels in port, American and other, were at half-mast, as was the admiral's square blue flag at the mizzen, which is never lowered while he remains on duty on board. As the movement began, a first gun was fired from the _Hartford_, which continued at minute intervals until she had completed thirteen, a rear-admiral's salute. When she had finished, the _Shenandoah_ took up the tale, followed in turn by the _Oneida_ and _Iroquois_, the mournful cadence thus covering almost the whole period up to the customary volleys over the graves. As saluting was the first lieutenant's business, I had remained on board to attend to it; and consequently, from our closeness to the land, had a more comprehensive view of the pageant than was possible to a participant. Our ships were nearly stripped of their crews; the rank of the admiral and the number of the sufferers, as well as the tragic character of the incident, demanding the utmost marks of reverent observance. As the march was taken up on shore, the British seamen in blue uniforms in the left column, the American in white in the right, to the number of several hundred each, presented a striking appearance; but more imposing and appealing, the central feature and solemn exponent of the occasion, was the long line of twelve coffins, skirting the sandy beach against a background of trees, borne in single file on men's shoulders in ancient fashion, each covered with the national colors. The tokens of mourning, so far as ships' ensigns were concerned, continued till sunset, when the ceremonial procedure was closed by a simple form, impressive in its significance and appropriateness. Following the motions of the American flag-ship, the chief mourner, the flags of all the vessels, as by one impulse, were rounded up to the peaks, as in the activities of every-day life; that of the dead admiral being at the same time mast-headed to its usual place. By this mute gesture, vessels and crews stood at attention, as at a review, for their last tribute to the departed. The _Hartford_ then fired a farewell rear-admiral's salute, at the thirteenth and final gun of which his flag came down inch by inch, in measured dignity, to be raised no more; all others descending with it in silent haulage.

Admiral Henry Bell, who thus sadly ended his career when on the verge of an honored retirement, was in a way an old acquaintance of mine. It was he who had refused me a transfer to the _Monongahela_ during the war; and he and my father, having been comrades when cadets at the Military Academy in the early twenties of the last century, had retained a certain interest in each other, shown by mutual inquiries through me. Bell had begun life in the army, subsequently quitting it for the navy for reasons which I do not know. He had the rigidity and precision of a soldier's carriage, to a degree unusual to a naval officer of his period. This may have been due partly to early training, but still more, I think, in his case, was an outcome and evidence of personal character; for, though kindly and just, he was essentially a martinet. He had been further presented to me, colloquially, by my old friend the boatswain of the _Congress_, some of whose shrewd comments I have before quoted, and who had sailed with him as a captain. "Oh! what a proud man he was!" he would say. "He would walk up and down the poop, looking down on all around, thus"--and the boatswain would compress his lips, throw back his shoulders, and inflate his chest; the walk he could not imitate because he had a stiff knee. Bell's pride, however it may have seemed, was rather professional than personal. He was thorough and exact, with high standards and too little give. An officer entirely respectable and respected, though not brilliant.

Upon the funeral of our wrecked seamen followed a dispersion of the squadron. The _Hartford_ and _Shenandoah_, both bound home, departed, leaving the _Oneida_ and _Iroquois_ to "hold the fort." Conditions soon became such that it seemed probable we might have to carry out that precept somewhat literally. This was the period of the overthrow of the Tycoon's power by the revolt of the great nobles, among whom the most conspicuous in leadership were Chiosiu and Satsuma; names then as much in our mouths as those of Grant, Sherman, and Lee had been three years before. Hostilities were active in the neighborhood of Osaka and Kobe, the Tycoon being steadily worsted. So far as I give any account, depending upon some old letters of that date, it will be understood to present, not sifted historical truth, but the current stories of the day, which to me have always seemed to possess a real value of their own, irrespective of their exactness. For example, the reports repeated by Nelson at Leghorn of the happenings during Bonaparte's campaign of 1796 in upper Italy, though often inaccurate, represent correctly an important element of a situation. Misapprehension, when it exists, is a factor in any circumstances, sometimes of powerful influence. It is part of the data governing the men of the time.

While a certain number of foreigners, availing themselves of the treaty, were settling for business in Kobe, a large proportion had gone to Osaka, a more important commercial centre, of several hundred thousand inhabitants. Its superior political consideration at the moment was evidenced by the diplomats establishing themselves there, our own minister among them. The defeat of the Tycoon's forces in the field led to their abandoning the place, carrying off also the guards of the legations; a kind of protection absolutely required in those days, when the resentment against foreign intrusion was still very strong, especially among the warrior class. It was, after all, only fourteen years since Perry had extorted a treaty from a none too willing government. The fleeing Tycoon wished to get away from Osaka by a vessel belonging to him; but in the event of her not being off the bar--as proved to be the case--a party of two-sworded men, of whom he was rumored to be one, brought a letter from our minister asking any American vessel present to give them momentary shelter. It is customary for refugees purely political to be thus received by ships of war, which afford the protection their nation grants to such persons who reach its home territory; of which the ships are a privileged extension.

The minister's note spoke of the bearers simply as officers of the very highest rank. About three in the morning they came alongside of the _Iroquois_, their boatmen making a tremendous racket, awaking everybody, the captain getting up to receive them. When I came on deck before breakfast the poor fellows presented a moving picture of human misery, and certainly were under a heavy accumulation of misfortunes: a lost battle, and probably a lost cause; flying for life, and now on an element totally new; surrounded by those who could not speak their language; hungry, cold, wet, and shivering--a combination of major and minor evils under which who would not be depressed? At half-past seven they left us, after a brief stay of four hours; and there was much trouble in getting so many unpractised landsmen into the boats, which were rolling and thumping alongside in the most thoughtless manner, there being considerable sea. I do not remember whether the ladders were shipped, or whether they had to descend by the cleats; but either presented difficulties to a man clad in the loose Japanese garb of the day, having withal two swords, one very long, and a revolver. What with encumbrances and awkwardness, our seamen had to help them down like children. Poor old General Scott shuddering in a Key West norther, and these unhappy samurai, remain coupled in my mind; pendant pictures of valor in physical extremes, like Caesar in the Tiber. For were not our shaking morning visitors of the same blood, the same tradition, and only a generation in time removed from, the soldiers and seamen of the late war? whose "fitness to win," to use Mr. Jane's phrase, was then established.

Between the departure of the Tycoon's forces and the arrival of the insurgent daimios, the native mob took possession of Osaka, becoming insolent and aggressive; insomuch that a party of French seamen, being stoned, turned and fired, killing several. The disposition and purposes of the daimios being uncertain, the diplomatic bodies thought best to remove to Kobe, a step which caused the exodus of all the new foreign population. Chiosiu and Satsuma, the leaders in what was still a rebellion, had not yet arrived, nor was there any assurance felt as to their attitude towards the foreign question. The narrow quarters of the _Iroquois_ were crowded with refugees and fugitive samurai; while from our anchorage huge columns of smoke were seen rising from the city, which rumor, of course, magnified into a total destruction. Afterwards we were told that the Tycoon had burned Satsuma's palace in the place, in retaliation for which the enemy on entry had burned his. The Japanese in their haste left behind them their wounded, and one of the _Iroquois'_ officers brought off a story of the Italian minister, who, indignant at this desertion, went up to a Japanese official, shouting excitedly, "I will have you to understand it is not the custom in Europe thus to abandon our wounded." This he said in English, apparently thinking that a Japanese would be more likely to understand it than Italian.

The embarkation was an affair of a short time, and the _Iroquois_ then went to Kobe, where we discharged our load of passengers. The diplomats had decided that there, under the guns of the shipping, they would establish their embassies and remain; reasoning justly enough that, if foreigners suffered themselves to be forced out of both the ports conceded by treaty, there would be trouble everywhere, in the old as well as the new. So the flags were soon flying gayly, and all seemed quiet; but for the maintenance of order there was no assurance while the interregnum lasted, the Tycoon's authorities having gone, and Chiosiu or Satsuma still delaying. Officers on shore were therefore ordered to go armed. On February 4, 1868, two days after our return, a party of samurai, some five hundred strong, belonging to the Prince of Bizen, marched through the town by the Tokaido. As they passed the foreign concession, which bordered this high-road, they turned and fired upon the Europeans. The noise was heard on board the ships, and the commotion on shore was evident, people fleeing in every direction. The Japanese troops themselves broke and ran along the highway, abandoning luggage, arms, and field-pieces. The American and British ships of war, with a French corvette, manned and armed boats, landing in hot haste five or six hundred men, who pursued for some distance, but failed to overtake the assailants. At the same time the vessels sprang their batteries to bear on the town; a move which doubtless looked imposing enough, though we could scarcely have dared to fire on the mixed multitude, even had the trouble continued.

When our seamen returned, a conference was held, wherein it was determined, as a joint international measure, to hold the concession in force; and as a further means of protection to close the Tokaido, which was done by occupying the angles of a short elbow, of two hundred yards, made by it in traversing the town. This step, while justifiable from the point of view of safety for the residents, was particularly galling to Japanese high-class feeling; for the use of the imperial road was associated with certain privileges to the daimios, during whose passing the common people were excluded, or obliged to kneel, under penalty of being cut down on the spot. Satsuma was reported to have remonstrated; but in view of the recent occurrence there could be no reply to the foreign retort, "You must secure our people." The custom-house, within the concession, was garrisoned, making a fortification very tenable against any enemy likely to be brought against it; while round it was thrown up a light earth-work, to which the seamen and marines dispersed in the concession could retire in case of need. But behind all, invulnerable, stood the ships, deterred from aggression only by fear for their own people, which would cease to operate if these had to be withdrawn.

The action of this body of samurai was probably unpremeditated, unless possibly in the mind of the particular officer in charge, who afterwards paid with his life for the misconduct of his men. While the state of siege continued a complete stop was put to our horseback excursions in the country, a deprivation the more felt because coinciding with an unusually fine spell of weather; but in a few days an envoy arrived from the insurgent daimios, with whom a settlement was speedily reached. Chiosiu and Satsuma had by this time succeeded in establishing themselves as the real representatives of the Mikado, an authority in virtue of which alone the Tycoon had ruled; the true headship of the Mikado being admitted by all. They undertook that foreigners should be adequately protected, and that the officer responsible for the late outrage should be punished with death. By the 20th of February Kobe was full of Chiosiu and Satsuma samurai, who were as courteously civil as those of the Tycoon had been; and after a conference with the special envoy of the Mikado the ministers returned to Osaka. We, too, resumed our country rides, but still weighted with a huge navy revolver.

No doubt on any hand was felt of the sincere purpose of the new government to fulfil its pledges; but their troops were still ill-organized, and it was impossible to rest assured that they might not here and there break bounds, as at Kobe. We were encountering the accustomed uncertainties of a period of revolutionary transition, intensified by prejudices engendered through centuries of national isolation, with all the narrowing and deepening of prepossession which accompanies entire absence of intercourse with other people. At this very moment, in March, 1868, the decree against the practice of Christianity by the natives was reissued: "Hitherto the Christian religion has been forbidden, and the order must be strictly kept. The corrupt religion is strictly forbidden." Yet I am persuaded that already far-seeing Japanese had recognized that the past had drifted away irrevocably, and that the only adequate means to meet the inevitable was to accept it fully, without grudging, and to develop the nation to equality with foreigners in material resources. But such anticipation is the privilege of the few in any age or any country.

Very soon after the return of our men from their garrison duty, an outbreak of small-pox on board the _Iroquois_ compelled her being sent to Yokohama, where, as an old-established port, were hospital facilities not to be found in Kobe, though we had succeeded in removing the first cases to crude accommodations on shore. The disease was then very prevalent in Japan, where vaccination had not yet been introduced; and to an unaccustomed eye it was startling to note in the streets the number of pitted faces, a visible demonstration of what a European city must have presented before inoculation was practised. One of our crew had died; and when we started, February 25th, we had on board some sick. These were carefully isolated under the airy topgallant forecastle, and with a good passage the contagion might not have spread; but the second day out the weather came on bad and very thick, ending with a gale so violent that to save the lives of the patients they had to be taken below, and then, for the safety of the ship, which was single-decked, the hatches had to be battened down. Conditions more favorable for the spread of the malady could not have been devised, and the result was that we were not fairly clear of the epidemic for nearly two months, though the cases, of which we had fifteen or twenty, were sent ashore as fast as they developed. At that period few ships on the station wholly escaped this scourge.

It was after we left Kobe that judicial satisfaction was given for the attack upon the foreign concession. My account depends upon the reports which reached us; but as the captain of the _Oneida_ was one of the official witnesses, on the part of the international interests concerned, I presume that what we heard was nearly correct. The final scene was in a temple near Hiogo. Being of the class of nobles, the condemned had a privilege of the peerage, which insured for him the honorable death of the harakiri;[12] a distinction apparently analogous to that which our soldiers of European tradition draw between hanging and shooting. Having duly performed acts of devotion suited to the place and to the occasion, he spoke, justifying his action, and saying that, under similar circumstances, he would again do the same. He then partly disrobed, assisted by friends, and when all was ready stabbed himself; a comrade who had stood by with drawn sword at the same instant cutting off his head with a single blow. I was tempted by curiosity, once while on the station, to attend the execution of some ordinary criminals; and I can testify to the deftness and instantaneousness with which one head fell, in the flash of a sword or the twinkling of an eye. I did not care to view the fates of the three others condemned, but it was clear that no judicial death could be more speedy and merciful.

Nearly coincident with this exacted vengeance occurred an incident which demonstrated its policy. A boat's crew from a French ship of war had gone ashore to survey, unarmed. They were accosted by a well-dressed man, wearing two swords, who suggested to them going up to a village near the spot where they were at work. They accepted, and were led by him into an ambush where eleven of them--all but one--were slain. So there was another great funeral at Hiogo, but, one which excited emotions far otherwise mournful than the simple sorrow and sympathy elicited by the Bell disaster. The graveyard of the place had, indeed, a good start. The assassins in this case belonged to the troops of the insurgent daimios; and as the French already favored the Tycoon--which perhaps may have been one motive for the attack--some apprehension was felt that they might, in consequence, espouse his cause more actively. Nothing of the sort happened. I presume all the legations, and their nations, felt that at the moment the solidarity of the foreign interest was more important to be secured than the triumph of this or that party. By abstaining from intervention, all the embassies could be counted on to back a united demand for reparation for injuries to the citizens of any one.

With the arrival of the _Iroquois_ at Yokohama the notable incidents of the cruise for the most part came to an end; there following upon it the routine life of a ship of war, with its ups and downs of more or less pleasant ports, good and bad weather, and the daily occupations which make and maintain efficiency. Yokohama itself was then the principal and most flourishing foreign settlement in Japan, the seat of the legations, and with an agreeable society sufficiently large. Among other features we here found again in force the British soldier; a battalion of eight hundred being permanently in garrison. The country about was thought secure, though for distant excursions, requiring a whole day, we carried revolvers; and I remember well the scuttling away of several pretty young women when one of these was accidentally discharged at a wayside tea-house. But while occasional rumors of danger would spread, it was hard to tell whence, I think nothing of a serious nature occurred. Nevertheless, albeit resentment and hostility were repressed in outward manifestation by the strong hand of the government, and by the examples of punishment already made, they were still burning beneath the surface. It was during this period that the British minister, visiting Kioto, a concession jealously resisted by conservative Japanese spirit, was set upon by some ronins while on his way to pay an official call. He was guarded by British cavalry and marines, and had besides an escort of samurai. It was said at the time that these fled, except the officers, who fought valiantly, slaying one and beating down the other of the two most desperate assailants. Considering the well-established courage of the Japanese, and that the attack was by their own people, sympathy with the attempt seems the most likely explanation of the faithlessness reported. The immediate effect of this was to curtail our privileges of riding about the country of Yokohama.

Perhaps the most notable incident, historically, of our stay in Yokohama was the arrival of the first iron-clad of the Japanese navy, to which it has fallen a generation later to give the most forcible lesson yet seen of iron-clads in battle. This vessel had been the Confederate ram _Stonewall_, and prior to her acquisition by Japan had had a curiously checkered career of ownership. She was built in Bordeaux, under the name _Sphinx_, by contract between a French firm and the Confederate naval agent in Europe; but some difficulty arose between the parties, and in 1864 Denmark, being then at war with Austria and Prussia concerning the Schleswig-Holstein duchies, bought her under certain conditions. With a view to delivery to the Danish government she was taken to a Swedish port, and after a nominal sale proceeded under the Swedish flag to Copenhagen, where she remained in charge of a banker of that city. Peace having been meanwhile declared, Denmark no longer wanted her. The sale was nullified under pretext of failure in the conditions, and she passed finally into the hands of the Confederacy,[13] sailing from Copenhagen January 7, 1865. Off Quiberon, in France, she received a crew from another vessel under Confederate direction, and thence attempted to go to the Azores, but was forced by bad weather into Ferrol. From there she crossed the Atlantic; but by the time of her arrival the War of Secession was ended by the surrenders of Lee and Johnston. Her commander took her to Havana, and there gave her up to the Spanish authorities. Spain, in turn, in due time delivered her to the United States, as the legal heir to all spoils of the Confederacy. Several years later, in 1871, I had a share in bringing home part of these often useless trophies; the ship in which I was having gone to Europe, without guns, loaded with provisions to supply the needs of the French poor, presumed to be suffering from the then recent war with Germany. Our cargo discharged, we were sent to Liverpool, and there took on board some rifled cannon and projectiles originally made for the South.

The _Stonewall_ had been lying at the Washington Navy-Yard when I was stationed there in 1866. Measured by to-day's standards she was of trivial power, small in size, moderate in speed, light in armor and armament; but her ram was of formidable dimensions, and at that period the tactical value of the ram was estimated much more highly than it now is. The disastrous effect of the thrust, if successfully made, outweighed in men's minds the difficulty of hitting; an error of valuation similar to that which has continuously exaggerated the danger from torpedo craft of all kinds. After the sailing of the _Iroquois_, a deputation of Japanese officials came to the United States on a mission, part of which was to buy ships of war. In reply to their inquiries, Commander--now Rear-Admiral--George Brown, then ordnance officer of the yard, pointed out the _Stonewall_ to them as a vessel suitable for their immediate purposes, and with which our government might probably part. He also expressed a favorable opinion of her sea-going qualities for reaching Japan. A few days later they came to him and said that, as he thought well of her, perhaps he would undertake to carry her out; their own seamanship at that early date being unequal to the responsibility. This was more than was anticipated by Brown, interested in his present duties, but it rather put him on his mettle; and so he set forth, a satisfactory pecuniary arrangement having been concluded. She went by way of the Strait of Magellan and the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Yokohama without other incident than constant ducking. As one of her officers said, clothes needed not to be scrubbed; a soiled garment could be simply secured on the forward deck, and left there to wash in the water that came on board until it was clean. I have never known her subsequent fortunes in Japanese hands; but as the beginning of their armored navy she has a place in history--and here.

From Yokohama the _Iroquois_ returned to Kobe, and there lay during July, August, and September; so that in our two visits I passed five months in this part of the Inland Sea. The summer, in its way, is there as pleasant as the winter in its. The highest thermometer I read was 87 deg. Fahrenheit, and there was almost always a pleasant breeze. The country was now so far safe that we went everywhere within reasonable reach of the concession, and the scenery presented such variety in sameness as to be a perpetual source of enjoyment. The most striking characteristics are the views of the enclosed sea itself, ample in expanse, yet without the monotony attendant upon an unbounded water view; and, when that disappears, follows the succession of enclosed valleys, alike, yet different; a recurrent feature similar, though on another scale, to that presented by the valley of the Inn on the ride from Zurich to Innsbruck. How far away those days are is seen from my noting on one of them, while visiting what was known to us as the Moon Temple, that the ships of war below were dressed in honor of the first Napoleon's birthday, August 15th; an observance which ceased with the empire.

This time I managed an opportunity of seeing Osaka, which the disturbed conditions had prevented my doing during our winter stay. Description I shall avoid, as always; enough to say that the flatness of the site, in low land, six miles from the mouth of the narrow, winding river, makes the city one of canals, like Venice and Amsterdam. In visiting the great castle of the Tycoon, a stone fortification notable not only for its own size, but for the dimensions of the huge single stones of which it is built, we went by boat, following a sluggish watercourse, an eighth of a mile wide, and so shallow that we poled through it. The pull from the bar to the city was very tedious, and Kobe evidently had proved the better commercial situation; for even now, half a year after the opening of the port, we were looked upon with curiosity; were followed by crowds which stopped if we stopped, moved when we moved. To the children we were objects of apprehension; they eyed us fearfully, and scuttled away rapidly if we made any feint at rushing towards them. Nevertheless, the prevailing tone among the common people was now plainly kindly, although six months before they would at times spit at foreigners from the bridges which in great numbers span the streams. The temper of those who form mobs changes lightly. It is true that in our excursions we were accompanied by an armed guard, which would seem to indicate possibilities of danger; but these samurai themselves were not only courteous, but interested and smiling, and I thought gave good promise that their class in general was coming round to friendliness.

We left Kobe towards the end of September, in company with a new flag-ship which had arrived to take the place of the _Hartford_. This vessel rejoiced to call herself _Piscataqua_, which is worth recording as a sample of a class of name then much affected by the powers that were, presumably on account of their length; "fine flourishers," to quote the always illustrative Boatswain Chucks, "as long as their homeward-bound pendants, which in a calm drop in the water alongside." _Piscataqua_, however uncouth, most Americans can place; but what shall we say of _Ammonoosuc_, _Wampanoag_, and such like, then adorning our lists, which seem as though extracted by a fine-tooth comb drawn through the tangle of Indian nomenclature. Under the succeeding administration _Piscataqua_ was changed to _Delaware_. The new commander-in-chief was among our most popular officers, distinguished alike for seamanship, courage, and courtesy; but he held to great secrecy as to his intentions, which caused officers more inconvenience than seemed always quite necessary. Questions of mess-stores, of correspondence, and other pre-arrangements, depend much upon knowledge of future movements, as exact as may not interfere with service emergencies. These in peace times rarely require concealment. A characteristic story ran that, as the two vessels were leaving Kobe, when the flag-ship's anchor was a-weigh, her captain, still ignorant of her destination, turned to the admiral and said, "Which way shall I lay her head, sir?"

It turned out that we were bound to Nagasaki, on our way to China. The approaching northeast monsoon, with its dry, bracing air, dictates the period when foreign squadrons usually go south, having during the summer in Japan avoided the debilitating damp heat which those months entail in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the Chinese ports generally. The _Iroquois_, however, had soon to separate from the flag-ship, owing to news received of a singular occurrence, savoring more of two hundred years ago, or of to-day's dime novel--"shilling shocker," as our British brethren have it--than of the prosaic nineteenth century. There had arrived at Hakodate, the northernmost of the then open Japanese ports, on the island of Yezo and Strait of Tsugaru, a mysterious bark, without name or papers, peopled only by Chinese of the coolie class, and bearing evident marks of foul play. From indications she was supposed to be American, and our ship, being the most immediately available, was ordered up to investigate; leaving Nagasaki October 24, 1868. Our course took us over the ground which has since become historic by the destruction of Rodjestvensky's fleet, as well as by other incidents of the Russo-Japanese war; and the weather we had, both going and returning, would justify the anxiety said to have been felt by the Japanese naval authorities, that Port Arthur should be taken before the winter set in. Like men, ships must do their work at whatever cost; but like men also, and perhaps even more, they should be spared needless strain, especially if they be few. A sick ship needs usually more time for recovery than a sick man.

Our orders directed a stop at a port called Niigata, on the west coast of Nippon. We must have communicated, for I thence despatched a letter; but at the time of our arrival a furious northwest gale was blowing, dead on shore. The ship, therefore, ran under a largish island called Sado, which much to our convenience lies a few miles to sea-ward of Niigata, and there anchored; quietly enough as to wind, though gusty willy-waws descending from the cliffs and swishing the water in petty whirlwinds testified to the commotion outside. We had quite the same experience returning to Shanghai; but at that time in mid-sea, where the _Iroquois_, powerless as to steam, but otherwise as much at home as the sea-fowl, rode it out gleefully, though I admit not luxuriously to flesh and muscles.

On November 1st we reached Hakodate, where our captain and consul, aided by the Japanese authorities, proceeded at once with their investigation. The strange vessel was in as distressed condition, almost, as that of the Ancient Mariner when he drew near "his own countree:" sails gone, rigging flying loose, one of her topgallant masts, if I remember right, snapped in two, and the exterior of her hull as though neither paint nor soap had known it for years. In her cabins were marks of blood not eradicated; and particularly on the transom over the stern windows was the print of a bloody hand, the fingers spread wide as they rested against the paint, suggesting resistance by one being thrust out. The story so far collected from the coolies was that they had sailed in her from Macao, a Portuguese port near Canton and Hong Kong, and that the captain and crew, after taking her far north in the ice, had abandoned her altogether. In support of this part of their story they showed furs procured from the natives. These gave plausibility to the ice experiences; but the rest of the account, unlikely in itself, had been disproved by inquiry in Macao, where nothing was known of any vessel answering to the descriptions. At last, however, a rumor had come, how conveyed I know not, that such a bark, with coolies and twelve thousand dollars in gold on board, had sailed from Callao, in Peru, the previous January, and had never since been heard from; that she had a Peruvian captain and crew, but carried American colors, probably merely as indicating American property. To claim full American privilege, ships must be American built; but one bought abroad and owned by Americans may carry the flag, in proof of nationality, though without the right of entering an American port like those to the manner born. They thus become entitled to the same national regard as any other possessions of American citizens under foreign jurisdiction.

So information stood when the _Iroquois_ arrived--false on one hand, and on the other vague. Soon after the captain and consul began their investigation they stumbled upon the vessel's papers, concealed in a manner which had hitherto baffled careful search. These showed that she was the missing _Cayalti_, which on the previous January 18th had cleared from Callao for another Peruvian port; that she was American in ownership, while the captain and crew were Spanish in name. This fixed her identity; but how account for the disappearance of the ship's company, and for her presence in Hakodate, on the other side of the Pacific, three thousand miles north of Callao. To this inquiry the captain and consul addressed themselves in the cabin of the _Iroquois_. Two or three Japanese two-sworded officials were in attendance, and memory recalls their grave, impassive faces, as seen at times when some routine communication called me in to speak to our captain.

Contracted though the captain's quarters were, the unaccustomed scene, absent from their companions and from the familiar surroundings of their probable crime, was calculated to impress the culprits; and the methods pursued to instigate admissions savored, I fancy, more of the Orient than of modern Anglo-Saxon ideals. But the present functions of our officials corresponded to those of the French _juges d'instruction_; and, having to elicit the truth from a low class of Orientals, they dealt with them after the fashion which alone they would recognize as serious. The witnesses began, of course, by lying in the most transparent manner, but under judicious--or judicial--pressure a story was pieced together which in main outline probably corresponded with the truth; for in it three or four of them independently agreed. Two days out from Callao the coolies had risen against the whites, and after a short fight overpowered them. Of the crew, two jumped overboard; the rest submitted. A boat was then lowered, and the men in the water were killed; after which the others were tied together, made fast to an anchor, and so thrown into the sea, the mate, who had fought desperately, having first been mutilated by cutting off his ears. The captain and a Chinese steward were saved; the former to handle the ship, to which the coolies were unequal, and he was bidden to take her to China. I do not find in my contemporary letters the impression which remains on my mind, that they estimated his general observance of this order by the vague knowledge that China lay towards the evening sun. The history of that strange voyage would be interesting, but was scarcely recoverable in detail from the class of witnesses. It would be by no means certain that the master of a coastwise trader could navigate accurately; and, while he would always be sure of death if he brought the vessel within reach of China, it is not apparent why he should take her to the remote north in which the furs showed her to have been. I have never heard whether, as the evidence ran, he and the steward escaped alive, abandoning the ship.[14] He had disappeared when the Japanese found her drifting helplessly under her ignorant occupants.

While in Hakodate, I availed myself of the opportunity to visit a great lake and a volcano, not extinct, but not immediately active. They are distant about fifteen miles from the town, a position in which I see such a sheet of water on the maps of to-day. This was a long ride in the then state of the roads, after the autumn rains, and with nightly freeze sufficient continually to fix the moisture, and then to renew the dampness towards the noonday thaw. Transport was not by wheel, but by pack-animals; and as these marched in companies of a half-dozen or so, in single file, haltered one to the other, each as he stepped put his foot into the prints made, not merely by his immediate file-leader of the particular gang, but by all others going and coming for weeks before. The consequence was a succession of scallops, distributed over long stretches of mud, the consistency of which just sufficed to hold the shape thus impressed upon it. Japanese horses are small, and as a class quarrelsome; the one I rode on this occasion was little larger than a child's pony, and looked as if he had not been curried for a month. I hesitated to impose upon him my weight, a scruple which would have been intensified had I known the character of the pilgrimage through which he was to bear me. With his feet at the bottom of the scallop, the rounded top rose above his knee, nearly giving his patient nose the touch which his dejected mood and drooping head seemed to invite. At the first start he stumbled, nearly falling on me, but escaped with nostrils and mouth full of liquid dirt.

A day to go, a day to come, and one intervening to cross the lake and ascend the volcano, measured our excursion; through the whole of which we had sunny skies and exhilarating temperature till the last hour of our return, when a drizzling rain suggested what might have been our discomfort had the heavens above been as unpropitious as the roads beneath. Even the crossing of the lake and the ascent were particularly favored, the sky literally cloudless and water smooth; whereas the following morning, when we rose to depart, a fog had settled on the mountain, making movement upon it doubtful and even to a slight degree dangerous. The lake, some six miles by ten, and abounding in islets, lay smiling under the bright, wintry sun, its shores clad with leafless forests mingled with evergreens, save the barren slopes of the volcano itself; beneath the distant lava stream of which we were told seventeen hundred people lay, buried by the last eruption. The scene tempted me more than most to description, for the brilliant stillness of a clear November day, and the gaunt, bare trees, were strange to our long experience of verdure in southern Japan, and smacked strongly of home--Hakodate being in the latitude of New York; but, as always, the majority have their own vision, their own memory, of just such conditions and surroundings, more vivid for them than another's portrayal.

The two nights at the lake we slept in a Japanese tea-house, scrupulously clean and quite comfortable, but at that early date and remote region entirety primitive; I should rather say strictly native in all its arrangements. The kitchen was innocent of European suggestion; we ate with chopsticks, and fish from the lake were spitted and cooked around a fire in a sandy hearth, contrived below the middle of the room. Eggs were in abundance, but coffee was sorely missed at our chilly rising. At 9 A.M. we started for the volcano, getting back at 7 P.M. We landed at the foot of the lava stream and ascended by it through a picture of desolation. From shore to summit took us three hours, which confirmed to me a rough estimate of the height as about four thousand feet. The grade was not severe, some thirty or forty degrees; but by this time we had a brisk northwest wind blowing down our throats, and the latter part of the way our feet sank deep in volcanic dust. At the top the air was very cold, keen, and rare, but somewhat oppressive to the lungs. None of us cared to smoke, after eating and drinking, but the view afforded us was perfect; limitless, so far as atmospheric conditions went. In appearance the crater differed little, I presume, from others in a state of quiescence. Smoke and steam poured forth continually, in one spot in large volumes; while from many places issued little jets, such as puff from the out-door pipes of a factory, suggesting subterranean workmen. These were especially numerous from a large mound in the centre, which our guide told us was growing bigger and bigger with his successive visits, portending an outburst near. If his observation was accurate, it goes to show the coincident sympathetic movements which occur in volcanic regions remote from one another; for this year, 1868, followed one of great terrestrial disturbance. In 1867 two of our naval vessels had been carried ashore by a tidal wave in the West Indies; and of two others lying off Arica, Peru, one was dashed to pieces against the cliffs, while the other was carried over low, flat ground for a mile or so inland, where her dismantled hull was still lying when I was there in 1884.

Our starting when we did, as soon as possible, three days after arrival, justified the Nelsonian maxim not to trifle with a fair wind; for we just culled the three days which were the cream, and only cream, of our stay. From our return on the 6th, to sailing on the 12th, there was but one fair twenty-four hours--the rest from blustering to furious; and we went out with the promise of a gale which did not with evening "in the west sink smilingly forsworn." The _Iroquois_ ran through Tsugaru Strait under canvas, with a barometer rather tumbling than falling, and an east wind fast freshening to heavy. We knew it must end at northwest; but it lasted till afternoon of the next day, so we got a good offing. The shift of the wind was in its accompaniments spectacular--and cyclonic. The morning of the 13th was among the wildest I have seen. Daylight came a half-hour late, with a lurid sky; the clouds, the confused, heaving water, the sails, spars, and deck of the ship herself, all as if seen in a Lorraine glass. It having become nearly calm, she lay thrashing aimlessly in the swell, unsteadied by the canvas. The barometer still fell slowly till two in the afternoon, when it stopped, and we began to look out.

"First rise, after very low
Indicates a stronger blow."

At three it rose one one-hundredth of an inch, and almost simultaneously, looking over the weather rail, was to be seen the oncoming northwester, never long in debt to a southeaster. First a gleaming white line of foam beneath the sombre horizon, gradually spreading to right and left, and visibly widening as it drew near. Soon its deepening surface broke to view into innumerable separate wave-crests, which advanced leaping in tumultuous accord, like the bounding rush of a pack of wolves, whom you may see, and whose howling you can imagine but do not yet hear. As Kingsley has said, "It looks so dangerous, and you are so safe"--all the thrill, yet none of the apprehension. The new gale struck the _Iroquois_ in full force. Within twenty minutes it had reached its height, and so continued for near forty-eight hours, during thirty-six of which the hatches were battened down. For a time the two seas, the old and the new, fought each other to our discomfort; but the old yielded, and, as the new got its even, regular swing, the _Iroquois_ agreed with its enemy of the moment and rode easily.

With our arrival at Shanghai we had left behind whatever in the cruise of the _Iroquois_ could be considered exceptional as to incident; that is, while I remained with her. From December, 1868, we entered in China upon the usual routine of station movement; interesting enough at the time, but from which my memory retains nothing noteworthy. Subsequently we visited Formosa and Manila and Hong Kong; whence we were sent south for ten days to the Gulf of Hainan to search for a French corvette which had disappeared. We did not find her, nor was she again seen by mortal eyes. Returning to Hong Kong, we learned of the first election of General Grant to the presidency, and that a letter from him had reached the admiral asking that the captain of the flag-ship, who as a school comrade had once saved Grant's life, should be ordered home; the intention being to give him charge of an important bureau in the Navy Department. Under usual circumstances a relief would have been sent out; but as the request was from the expectant administration, not from the one still in power and antagonistic, a private letter was the chosen medium of action.

His departure made a vacancy, to which succeeded the captain of the _Iroquois_, a great favorite with the commander-in-chief. I was left in charge of the ship until we went back to Japan in May. There I fell ill at Nagasaki, and after recovery found myself at Yokohama, in command of a gunboat ordered to be sold. This consummation was reached in September, and I then started for home, having the admiral's permission to proceed by Suez to Europe, instead of by the usual route to San Francisco. My object was only to visit Europe; but on the way to Hong Kong a Parsee merchant, a fellow-passenger, suggested turning aside to India, which I had not contemplated. I shall not go into my brief India travel from Calcutta to Bombay, beyond mentioning the singular good-fortune, as it appeared to me, that I visited the ruined residence at Lucknow, and the remains of the memorable siege of twelve years before, in the company of an officer who had himself been a participant. His wife, still a very young and handsome woman, whom I had the pleasure of meeting, had been one of the children within the works, sharing the perils, if not the anxieties, of their mothers during that period of awful suspense.

Nor do I think my six months in Europe, leave for which met me on my arrival there, worthy of particular note, save in one incident which has always seemed to me curious. Landing at Marseilles, I found that intimate friends were then at Nice. I accordingly went there, instead of to Paris, as I had intended; and, like thoughtless young men everywhere, abandoned myself to pleasant society instead of to self-improvement by travel. My purpose, however, continually was to go directly to Paris when I did leave Nice, for my time was limited; but a middle-aged friend strongly dissuaded me. "You should by no means fail to visit Rome now," he said, "for, independently of the immortal interest of the place, of the treasures of association and of art which are its imperishable birthright, there is the more transient spectacle of the Papacy, in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of the temporal power. This may at any moment pass away, and you therefore may never have another opportunity to witness it in its glory. There is a vague traditional prophecy that, as St. Peter held the bishopric of Rome twenty-five years, any pope whose tenure exceeds his will see the downfall of the papal sovereignty over Rome. Such prophecies often insure their own fulfilment, and Pius IX. is now closely approaching his twenty-fifth year. Go while you can." So I went, in February, 1870; and before the next winter's snow the temporal power was a thing of the past.

XI

THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE--HISTORICAL, NAVAL, AND PERSONAL

1870

In narrating the cruise of the _Iroquois_ I have, as it were, laid the reins on the neck of my memory, letting it freely run away; partly because our track lay over stretches of sea even now somewhat unbeaten by travel, partly because the story of routine naval life and incidental experiences, in a time already far past, might have for the non-professional reader more novelty than could be premised by me, a daily participant therein. Moreover, there were in our cruise some exceptional occurrences which might be counted upon to relieve monotony. I purpose to observe greater restraint in what follows.