I have enjoyed the retrospective communication with my old friends. If my readers do so, they owe the pleasure to the publishers, who suggested the composition of the book.
IV. The Fifth Day of the Eleventh Month 32
Ito’s mother, suffering from rheumatism, to receive a massage treatment from one of the servants 31
It is really a day devoted to Hachiman, the god of war 59
The friends were standing in the garden of a Teahouse 165
But the houses are still as they were before 229
Japan had been asleep for more than two hundred years. About the time when the Pilgrim fathers landed in what is now known as the New England States, the man who ruled over Japan had made up his mind that he would have nothing more to do with the people of Europe, and he gave orders that no more foreigners should be admitted. He made one exception in favor of the people of Holland, but on condition that only a very small number of them should reside in Japan at a time; and they must be satisfied with the tiny island of Deshima[1] in the harbor of Nagasaki,[2] and promise that they would obey the governor of that city.
It was not many years before this time, when the Japanese had been glad to receive every European, but they had found out that the Portuguese and Spaniards wished to be masters of their country, and so their kindness had changed first into dislike and afterwards into hate. The Portuguese had taught many Japanese about our Lord, and a number of them had become Christians. But the Shogun[3] ordered that all Christians must be killed, and thousands of them were put to death. He gave also orders that all large ships must be destroyed, and that thereafter only small vessels could be built. Besides, he threatened to put to death any Japanese who should return to his country after having been abroad, even if he had been carried away against his will. No foreigner could come to Japan and no Japanese could leave his country. They could, therefore, learn nothing from other people. That is why I said that Japan had been asleep for more than two hundred years.
In all that long time there had been no change. Just as Japan was in 1621, so it was in 1853. The houses were still built in exactly the same way, the men and boys dressed exactly as their ancestors had done before, and so did the women and girls, and they lived in the same manner.