My stay at Nagasaki afforded me useful opportunities of making the acquaintance of _samurai_ of various southern clans. I have already mentioned my introduction to Kido Junichirô.
The 14th I spent almost entirely in the company of Kido and Itô. A few days later Kido called to offer me the use of a steamer to Ozaka, if it suited me to return to Yedo by that route, but I deferred accepting, as my plans were not yet settled. Eventually arrangements were made for my being conveyed to Yokohama in one of H.M. ships, so that I was able to decline his obliging proposal. When Itô came to say good-bye on September 23, he was accompanied by a young fellow-clansman whom he wished me to take to Yedo, nominally as a pupil. This was Endo Kinsuké, one of the party of five Chôshiû men to which Itô had belonged, who went secretly to England in 1863, as already narrated. He bore the alias of Yamamoto Jinsuké. Itô's pseudonym was Hayashi Uichi, and Inouyé Bunda went by the name of Takada Harutarô. Amongst other interesting information given to me by Itô was that my friend Yamagata Keizô, who was one of the Chôshiû men that had accompanied me to Yokohama in October 1864, had been adopted by Shishido Bizen. It was his father, Yamagata Taiga, who wrote the pamphlet of which the title translated is the equivalent of "The present _daimiôs_ are not vassals of the prince," _i.e._ of the Shôgun, and not Nagai Uta, to whom it was usually attributed. Itô was a pupil of the well-known patriot Yoshida Torajirô, the author of several books controverting the views of Yamagata and Nagai. He said there were two schools of Chinese philosophy in Japan, namely, of Teishi (Ch'êng-tzu) and Oyômei (Wang Yang-ming), of which the first inculcates the duty of resisting tyrants, the second that of self-reformation. Yamagata belonged to the latter, hence his arguments against any attempt to disturb the existing political arrangements. (But the most widely diffused system in Japan was that of the philosopher Chu Hsi.)
Niiro Giôbu I saw four times. I dined with him once at a Japanese restaurant, when he said that he knew nothing of the engagement of Frenchmen by Iwashita Sajiemon, a Satsuma man who had gone to Paris for the exposition of 1867, and there came under the influence of the Comte de Montblanc. Directly he heard of it he wrote to Iwashita that the engagements must be cancelled, but his letter did not reach Paris in time. I said that of course we could not object to Satsuma employing Frenchmen, but as French views of Japanese domestic politics differed so widely from ours, and it was well understood that ours coincided to a certain extent with those of Satsuma, it was natural to ask whether this engagement implied a change of policy on the part of the Satsuma clan. Niiro replied that such a supposition would be quite natural, but that in fact no such change had occurred. Since the time when Osumi no Kami (father of the Prince of Satsuma, and virtual ruler of the clan notwithstanding his formal retirement from public life) had decreed the adoption of English methods, the whole province had become enthusiastic in their favour, and objected very strongly to the proposed introduction of Frenchmen. He was afraid he should have to send them home again. A few days later Niiro dined with Russell Robertson (assistant at the consulate) and myself at Robertson's house, when we engaged a French cook to serve the dinner. On this occasion no political conversation took place, but he told us that Saigô was Osumi no Kami's confidential man, and Komatsu Tatéwaki one of the seven _shussei_ (administrators) of the Satsuma clan. The prince, whose title was Shiuri no Taiyu, was 29 years of age, and his brother, Shimadzu Dzusho, 28. Altogether there were ten brothers and sisters, besides the three girls of the late prince, Satsuma no Kami. My last talk with Niiro was on October 12, when he gave me information about the native Christians, already recorded.