Among the feudal towns of Japan which can boast of a fine castle still standing, and of an illustrious lord as its former occupant, there are few that can rival Hikoné. Picturesquely seated on a wooded hill close to the shores of Lake Biwa, with the blue waters and almost equally blue surrounding mountains in full sight, the castle enjoys the advantages of strength combined with beauty; while the lords of the castle are descended from a very ancient family, which was awarded its territory by the great Iyéyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shōgunate, in return for the faithful services of their ancestor, Naomasa, in bringing the whole land under the Tokugawa rule. They therefore belonged to the rank of the Fudai Daimio, or Retainer Barons, from whom alone the Roju, or Senators, and other officers of the first class could be appointed. Of these lords of Hikoné much the most distinguished was Naosuké, who signed the treaty with the United States negotiated in 1857 and 1858. And yet, so strange are the vicissitudes of history, and so influential the merely incidental occurrences in human affairs, that only a chance visit of the Mikado saved this fine feudal castle from the “general ruin of such buildings which accompanied the mania for all things European and the contempt of their national antiquities, whereby the Japanese were actuated during the past two decades of the present régime.” Nor was it until recent years that Baron Ii Naosuké’s memory has been rescued from the charge of being a traitor to his country and a disobedient subject of its Emperor, and elevated to a place of distinction and reverence, almost amounting to worship, as a clear-sighted and far-seeing statesman and patriot.

However we may regard the unreasonableness of either of these two extreme views of Naosuké’s character, one thing seems clear. In respect to the laying of foundations for friendly relations between the United States and Japan, we owe more to this man than to any other single Japanese. No one can tell what further delays and resulting irritation, and even accession of blood-shed, might have taken place in his time had it not been for his courageous and firm position toward the difficult problem of admitting foreigners to trade and to reside within selected treaty-ports of Japan. This position cost him his life. For a generation, or more, it also cost him what every true Japanese values far more highly than life; it cost the reputation of being loyal to his sovereign and faithful to his country’s cause. Yet not five Americans in a million, it is likely, ever heard the name of Baron Ii Kamon-no-Kami, who as Tairō, or military dictator, shared the responsibility and should share the fame of our now celebrated citizen, then Consul General at Shimoda, Townsend Harris. My purpose, therefore, is two-fold: I would gladly “have the honour to introduce” Ii Naosuké to a larger audience of my own countrymen; and by telling the story of an exceedingly interesting visit to Hikoné, I would equally gladly introduce to the same audience certain ones of the great multitude of Japanese who still retain the knightly courtesy, intelligence and high standards of living—though in their own way—which characterised the feudal towns of the “Old Japan,” now so rapidly passing away.

Baron Ii Naosuké, better known in foreign annals as Ii Kamon-no-Kami, was his father’s fourteenth son. He was born November 30, 1815. The father was the thirteenth feudal lord from that Naomasa who received his fief from the great Iyéyasu. Since the law of primogeniture—the only exceptions being cases of insanity or bodily defect—was enforced throughout the Empire, the early chances that Naosuké would ever become the head of the family and lord of Hikoné, seemed small indeed. But according to the usage of the Ii clan, all the sons except the eldest were either given as adopted sons to other barons, or were made pensioned retainers of their older brother. All his brothers, except the eldest, had by adoption become the lords of their respective clans. But from the age of seventeen onward, Naosuké was given a modest pension and placed in a private residence. He thus enjoyed years of opportunity for training in arms, literature, and reflective study, apart from the corrupting influences of court life and the misleading temptations to the exercise of unrestricted authority—both of which are so injurious to the character of youth. Moreover, he became acquainted with the common people. That was also true of him, which has been true of so many of the great men of Japan down to the present time. He made his friend and counsellor of a man proficient in the military and literary education of the day. And, indeed, it has been the great teachers who, more than any other class, through the shaping of character in their pupils, have influenced mankind to their good. It was Nakagawa Rokurō who showed to Naosuké, when a young man, the impossibility of the further exclusion of Japan from foreign intercourse. It was he also who “influenced the future Tairō to make a bold departure from the old traditions” of the country.

On the death, without male issue, of his oldest brother, Naosuké was declared heir-apparent of the Hikoné Baronetcy. And on Christmas day of 1850 he was publicly authorised by the Shōgunate to assume the lordly title of Kamon-no-Kami. It is chiefly through the conduct of the man when, less than a decade later, he came to the position which was at the same time the most responsible, difficult and honourable but dangerous of all possible appointments in “Old Japan,” that the character of Baron Ii must be judged. On the side of sentiment—and only when approached from this side can one properly appreciate the typical knightly character of Japanese feudalism—we may judge his patriotism by this poem from his own hand:

or as freely translated by Dr. Griffis:—

(Omi is the poetical appellation of Lake Biwa, on which the feudal castle of the lords of Hikoné has already been said to be situated.) How the sincerity of this sentiment may be reconciled with the act which for an entire generation caused the baron to be stigmatised a traitor is made clear through the following story told by the great Ōkubo. In the troubled year of 1858, the Viscount, just before starting on an official errand to the Imperial Court at Kyoto, called on Baron Ii, who was then chief in command under the Shōgun, to inform him of his expected departure on the morrow. He had embodied his own views regarding the vexed question of foreign affairs, on his “pocket paper,” in the form of a poem. This paper the Viscount handed to the Baron and asked him whether his views were the same as those of the poem. Having carefully read it Ii approved and instructed Ōkubo to act up to the spirit of the poem, which reads:

“However numerous and diversified the nations of the earth may be, the God who binds them together can never be more than one.”

Whatever differences of view prevailed, between his political supporters and his political enemies, as to the purity of Naosuké’s patriotic sentiments, there was little opportunity for difference as to certain other important elements of his character. He had conspicuously the qualities needed for taking a position of dictatorial command in times of turbulence and extreme emergency. Serious in purpose, but slow in making up his mind, he had undaunted firmness in carrying out his plans, such that “no amount of difficulties would make him falter or find him irresolute.”

The burning question of foreign intercourse which the coming of Commodore Perry had forced upon the Shōgunate in 1853, had afterward been referred to the barons of the land. They favoured exclusion by a large majority; and some of them were ready to enforce it at the expense of a foreign war. But the recent experience of China at the hands of the allied forces was beginning to teach the Far East that lesson of preparedness by foreign and modern education which Japan has since so thoroughly learned; and to the fuller magnitude of which China herself is just awakening. To take the extreme position of complete and final resistance to the demands of the foreign forces seemed obviously to court speedy and inevitable ruin for the country at large. Yet none of the barons, except the Baron of Hikoné, had a plan to propose by which to exclude alike the peaceful foreigner come to trade and the armed foreigner come to enforce his country’s demand for peaceful intercourse by the use of warlike means.

It is interesting to notice that Naosuké answered the question of the Shōgunate in a manner to indicate the consistent policy of his country from 1853 down to the present time. He did not, it is probable, love or admire the personality of the foreign invader more than did his brother barons; or more than does the average Chinese official at the present time. On consulting with his own retainers, he found the “learned Nakagawa” the sole supporter of his views. All the clan, with the exception of this teacher and scholar, favoured exclusion at any cost. “The frog in the well knows not the great ocean,” says the Japanese proverb. And as to the Japanese people, who at that time were kept “in utter ignorance of things outside of their own country,” Count (now Prince) Yamagata said in 1887, with reference to the superior foresight of Baron Ii: “Their condition was like that of a frog in a well.”

In spite of the almost complete loneliness of his position among the barons of the first rank, Naosuké advised the Shōgunate that the tendencies of the times made it impossible longer to enforce the traditional exclusiveness of Japan. But he also—and this is most significant of his far-sighted views—advised the repeal of the law, issued early in the seventeenth century, which prohibited the building of vessels large enough for foreign trade; and this advice he coupled with the proposal that Japan should build navies for the protection, in future, of her own coasts. “Thus prepared,” he writes, “the country will be free from the menaces and threatenings of foreign powers, and will be able to uphold the national principle and polity at any time.”

The division of opinion, and the bloody strifes of political parties, in Japan, over the question of exclusion were not settled by the Convention for the relief of foreign ships and sailors which followed upon the return of the war-ships of the United States, and of other foreign countries, in 1854. Quite the contrary was the truth. When Mr. Townsend Harris arrived as Consul General in 1856, and began to press the question of foreign trade and residence in a more definite form, the party favouring exclusion was stronger, more bitter, and more extreme than before. In their complete ignorance of the very nature of a commercial treaty, the rulers of Japan quite generally mistook the American demand to open Kanagawa, Yedo, Osaka, Hiogo, and Niigata for an extensive scheme of territorial aggression. This they were, of course, ready to resist to their own death and to the ruin of the country. When the senators prepared a memorial to the Imperial Cabinet, stating their difficulty and the necessity of conforming to the foreign demand, and sent it to the Imperial Capital by the hand of their president, Baron Hotta, they were therefore instructed to delay, and to consult further with the Tokugawa Family and with the Barons of the land, before again even venturing to refer the matter to the Government at Kyoto. These instructions were, under the circumstances, equivalent to a flat and most dangerous refusal to allow the opening of the country at all.

It has not been generally recognised in his own country, how extremely important and yet how difficult was the position of Mr. Townsend Harris during the years, 1857-1858. Nor has he, in my judgment, been awarded his full relative share of credit for laying in friendly foundations the subsequent commercial and other forms of intercourse between the United States and Japan. Mr. Harris’ task was in truth larger and more complicated than that of Commodore Perry. The factors of Japanese politics opposed to its accomplishment were more manifold and vehement. Moreover, the question of foreign intercourse was then complicated by two other questions of the most portentous magnitude for the internal politics and political development of Japan. These were, the question of who should be the heir-apparent to the then ruling Shōgun; and the yet more important, and even supremely important question of how the Shōgunate should in the future stand related to the virtual—and not merely nominal—supremacy of the Imperial House. The opposition on both these questions was substantially the same as the opposition to permitting foreign trade and residence in the land. If then Commodore Perry deserves the gratitude of all for making the first approaches, in a way without serious disruption and lasting hatred, to begin the difficult task of opening Japan, Townsend Harris certainly deserves no less gratitude for enlarging and shaping into more permanent form the same “opening,” while quite as skilfully and effectively avoiding the exasperation of similar and even greater political evils.

His many embarrassments forced upon the somewhat too timid and hesitating Shōgun the necessity of selecting some one man upon whom the responsibility and the authority for decisive action could be confidently reposed. Seeing this man in the person only of Ii Kamon-no-Kami, Lord of Hikoné, he appointed him to the position of Tairō. Now, this position of Tairō, or “Great Elder,” which may be paraphrased by “President-Senator,” was one of virtual dictatorship. Only the Shōgun, who appointed him, could remove the Tairō or legally resist his demands. Naosuké was the last to hold this office; for fortunately for Japan the Shōgunate itself soon came to an end; but he will be known in history as Go-Tairō,—the dictator especially to be honoured, because he was bold, clear-sighted, and ready to die in his country’s behalf. On June 5, 1858, Baron Ii was installed in the position which gave him the power to conclude the treaty, and which at the same time made him responsible for its consequences of weal or woe, to individuals and to the entire nation,—even to the world at large. In this important negotiation the Japanese Baron Naosuké, and the American gentleman, Harris, were henceforth the chief actors.

It is not my intention to recite in detail the history of the negotiations of 1858, or of the difficulties and risks which the Tairō had to face in his conduct of them. While the Mikado’s sanction for concluding the treaty with Mr. Harris was still anxiously awaited, two American men-of-war arrived at Shimoda; and a few days later these were followed by Russian war-ships and by the English and French squadrons which had so recently been victorious in their war with China. It was by such arguments that America and Europe clinched the consent of reluctant Japan to admit them to trade and to reside within her boundaries!

It seemed plain enough now that the Yedo Government could not longer wait for permission from the Imperial Government to abandon its policy of exclusion. Two of its members, Inouyé and Iwasé, were forthwith sent to confer with the Consul General at Shimoda. When Mr. Harris had pointed out the impossibility of continuing the policy of exclusion, the dangers of adhering obstinately to the traditions of the past, and had assured them of America’s friendly intervention to secure favourable terms with the other powers of the West, the commissioners returned to Yedo to report. But still the opposing party grew; and still the Imperial Government delayed its consent. Meantime the bitterness against Baron Ii was increased by the failure of his enemies to secure the succession to the Shōgunate for their favoured candidate. None the less, the Tairō took upon himself the responsibility of despatching the same men with authority to sign that Convention between the United States and Japan which, in spite of the fact that it bore the name of the “Temporary Kanagawa Treaty” and was subject to revision after a specified term of years, remained unchanged until as late as 1895. This important event bore date of a little more than a half-century ago—namely, July 29, 1858.

It is foreign to my purpose to examine the charges, urged against Ii Kamon-no-Kami, of disobedience to the Imperial Government and of traitorous conduct toward his country. The latter charge has long since been withdrawn; and for this has been substituted the praise and homage due to the patriot who is able to oppose public opinion, to stand alone, to be “hated even by his relatives,” and to sacrifice his life in his country’s behalf. That the Tairō did not obey the Imperial command to submit again the question of exclusion to a council of the Tokugawa princes and the Barons of the land is indeed true. On the other hand, it is to be said that the Imperial Government, by not forbidding the Treaty, had thrown back upon the Shōgunate the responsibility for deciding this grave question; and that the appearance of the foreign war-ships gave no further opportunity, in wisdom, for continuing the policy of procrastination and delay. The hour demanded a man of audacity, of clear vision into the future, and of willingness to bear the full weight of a responsible decision. The hour found such a man in the Japanese Naosuké, hereditary feudal lord of Hikoné, but by providence in the position of Tairō, or military dictator. It was fortunate, indeed, for the future relations of the United States and Japan, and for the entire development of the Far East under European influences, that an American of such patience, kindliness, tactful simplicity, and sincere moral and religious principle, met at the very critical point of time a Japanese of such knightly qualities of honour, fearlessness, and self-centred force of character. This point of turning for two political hemispheres, this pivot on which swung the character of the intercourse between Far East and Occident, owes more, I venture to think, to Townsend Harris and to Ii Kamon-no-Kami than to any other two men.

The concluding of the Treaty did not allay the excitement of the country over the intrusion of foreigners, or discourage the party of the majority which favoured the policy of either risking all in an immediate appeal to arms, or of continuing the effort to put off the evil day by a policy of prevarication and temporising. Less than a fortnight after its signing, the Shōgun became suddenly ill, and four days later he died. Two days before his death, the three English ships had anchored at Shinagawa, a suburb of the capital of the Shōgunate; while the Russians had invaded the city of Yedo itself and established themselves in one of its Buddhist temples. Everything was now in confusion. The influence of the party for exclusion—forceful, if necessary—was now greatly strengthened among the Imperial Councillors at Kyoto; and intrigues for the deposition of the Tairō and even for his assassination went on apace. A serious and wide-spreading rebellion was threatened. The resort of the Baron of Hikoné to force in order to crush or restrain his enemies served, as a natural and inevitable result, to combine them all in the determination to effect his overthrow—a result which his opponents suggested he should forestall by committing harakiri, after acknowledging his mistakes; and which his friends urged him to prevent by resigning his office at Tairō.

Since Ii Kamon-no-Kami was not the man to retreat in either of these two cowardly ways, he was destined to perish by assassination. On March 25, 1860, one of the five annual festivals at which the princes and barons of the land were in duty bound to present themselves at the Shōgun’s Castle to offer congratulations, the procession of the Tairō left his mansion at “half-past the fifth watch,” or 9 o’clock A. M. Near the “Cherry-Field” gate of the castle, they were attacked by eighteen armed men, who were all, except one, former retainers of the Mito Clan, whose princes had been the most powerful enemy of Baron Ii, but who had resigned from the clan, and become ronin, or “wave-men,” in order not to involve in their crime the lord of the clan. The suddenness of the attack, and the fact that the defenders were impeded by the covered swords and flowing rain-coats which the weather had made necessary, gave the attacking party a temporary advantage. Baron Ii was stabbed several times through the sides of his palanquin, so that when dragged out for further wounding and decapitation, he was already dead. Thus perished the man who signed the treaty with Townsend Harris, fifty years ago, in the forty-sixth year of his age.

The motives of the two parties—that of the majority who favoured exclusion and that of the minority who saw the opening of the country to be inevitable—can best be made clear by stating them in the language of each, as they were proclaimed officially to the Japanese of that day. Fortunately, we are able to do this. So bitter was the feeling against their feudal lord, even after his death, that it seemed necessary, in order to prevent complete ruin from falling upon the whole Clan of Hikoné, that all his official papers and records should be burned. But Viscount Ōkubo, at no inconsiderable danger to himself, managed “to save the precious documents”; for, said he, “There will be nothing to prove the sincerity and unmixed fidelity of Lord Naosuké, if the papers be destroyed. Whatever may come I dare not destroy them.”

From one of these papers we quote the following sentences which show why Baron Ii as Tairō signed, on his own responsibility, this detested treaty with the hated and dreaded foreigners. “The question of foreign intercourse,” it says, “is pregnant with serious consequences. The reason why the treaty was concluded with the United States was because of the case requiring an immediate answer. The English and French Squadrons, after their victory over China, were very soon expected to our coasts; and the necessity of holding conferences with different nations at the same time might cause confusion from which little else than war could be expected. These foreigners are no longer to be despised. The art of navigation, their steam-vessels and their military and naval preparations have found full development in their hands. A war with them might result in temporary victories on our part; but when our country should come to be surrounded by their combined navies, the whole land would be involved in consequences which are clearly visible in China’s experience.... Trying this policy for ten or twelve years, and making full preparation for protection of the country during that period, we can then determine whether to close up or open the country to foreign trade and residence.... If it were only one nation with which we had to deal, it would be much easier; but several nations, coming at this time with their advanced arts, it is entirely impossible to refuse their requests to open intercourse with our country. The tendency of the times makes exclusion an entire impossibility.”

But the assassins, on their part, before entering on their bloody deed, had drawn up a paper which, as signed by seventeen, or all except one of their number, they wished to have go down to posterity in justification of their course. They, too, all met death either on the spot, or subsequently by public execution, for their crime of assassination. “While fully aware,” says this manifesto, “of the necessity of some change in policy since the coming of the Americans to Uraga, it is entirely against the interest of the country and a shame to the sacred dignity of the land, to open commercial relations, to admit foreigners into the castle, to conclude a treaty, to abolish the established custom of trampling on the picture of Christ, to permit foreigners to build places of worship of their evil religion, Christianity, and to allow three Foreign Ministers to reside in the land. Under the excuse of keeping the peace, too much compromise has been made at the sacrifice of national honour. Too much fear has been shown in regard to the foreigners’ threatening.”

This remarkable paper then goes on to charge the Tairō, Baron Ii, with being responsible for so dishonourable an act of compromise. He has assumed “unbridled power”; he has proved himself “an unpardonable enemy of his nation,” a “wicked rebel.” “Therefore we have consecrated ourselves to be the instruments of Heaven to punish this wicked man; we have assumed on ourselves the duty of putting an end to a serious evil by killing this atrocious autocrat.” The assassins then go on to swear before Heaven and earth, gods and men, that their act was motived by loyalty to the Emperor, and by the hope to see the national glory manifested in the expulsion of foreigners from the land.

At this distance of half a century, and considering the spirit of the former age, we need not judge between Naosuké and his murderers as regards the sincerity of their patriotism. But as to which of the two parties followed the path of wisdom, there can be no manner of doubt. Both Japan and its foreign invaders still owe a great debt of gratitude and a tribute of wisdom, to Baron Ii Kamon-no-Kami. While over all our clouded judgment hangs serene the truth of the autograph of four Chinese characters with which, years afterwards, the Imperial Prince Kitashirakawa honoured the book written to vindicate the Tairō: “Heaven’s ordination baffles the human.”

How the memory of its former feudal lord is cherished in Hikoné, and how his spirit still survives and in some sort dominates its citizens, I had occasion to know during two days of early February, 1907. The little city, headed by Mr. Tanaka, the steward of the present Count Ii, by letter and then by a personal visit from the Christian pastor, Mr. Sonoda, had urgently invited us to visit them, with the promise that we should see the castle and other reminders of its former feudal lord. I, on my part, was to speak to them on education and morality, the two subjects about which the serious people of Japan are just now most eager to hear. The same gentleman who had been the medium of the invitation, was to be our escort from Kyoto to Hikoné. But on the way, although the wind was piercing and light snow was falling, we saw again the familiar objects of interest about the lower end of Lake Biwa;—Miidera Temple, with its relics of the legendary giant Benkei, such as the bell which he carried part way up the hill and then dropped and cracked, and the huge kettle out of which he ate his rice; then the wonderful pine-tree at Karasaki, the sail down the lake and under the bridge of Seta; and, finally, the sights of Ishiyama.

At a tea-house near the station here we were met by Mr. Tanaka, who had come by train to extend the welcome of the city and who emphasised this welcome by referring to the interest which we, as Americans, in common with all our countrymen, must feel in the place that had been the residence of the great Tairō. For had not he “influenced the Shōgunate to open the country to the United States, and lost his life for his advanced views?”

As the train conveyed us into the uplands, the snow began to fall more heavily until it lay nearly a foot deep upon the plain and wooded hill, crowned with its castle, of the ancient feudal town. Just as the setting sun was making the mountains and the clouds aglow with a rose colour, as warm and rich as anything to be seen in Switzerland, we reached the station of Hikoné, and were at once taken into its waiting-room to receive and return greetings of some thirty of the principal citizens who had come out to welcome the city’s guests. On account of the deep snow it was a jinrikisha ride of nearly half an hour to the place where we were to be lodged—the Raku-raku-tei, just beside the castle-moat, under its hill, and almost in the lake itself. Here a beautiful but purely Japanese house, which was built by the lord of the castle as a villa, stands in one of the finest gardens of all Japan.

The fear that their foreign guests would not be entirely comfortable, even if entertained in the best Japanese style, made it difficult for us at first to discard or neglect the accessories especially provided, and disport ourselves as though we were really cherishing, and not feigning, the wish to be treated by them as their feudal lord would have treated his friends at the beginning of the half century now gone by. In the end, however, we succeeded fairly well in the effort to merge ourselves, and our modern Western habits and feelings, in the thoughts, ways and emotions of the so-called “Old Japan.”

Flags were hung over the quaint Japanese doorway of the villa; and the manager, the landlord, and all the servants, were in proper array to greet the long line of jinrikishas which were escorting the guests. Our shoes removed, we were ushered through numerous rooms and corridors, made attractive with the quiet beauty of choice screens and the finest of mats, into the best apartment of the house. Here bright red felt had been spread over the mats; a tall lacquer hibachi, daimyo style, stood in the middle of the chamber; and large lacquer or brass candlesticks, with fat Hikoné candles and wicks nearly a half-inch thick, stood on either side of the hibachi and in each of the corners of the room.

Thus far, the surroundings were well fitted to carry our imaginations back to the time of Ii Kamon-no-Kami himself. But there were two articles of the furnishing sure to cause a disillusionment. These were a pair of large arm-chairs, arranged throne fashion behind the hibachi, and covered with green silk cushions (or zabuton) which were expected to contribute both to our comfort and to our sense of personal dignity, while we were “officially receiving”—so to say. Without offending our kind hosts, I trust, and certainly to the increase of our own satisfaction, we begged permission to slip off from our elevated position, so calculated to produce the feelings of social stiffness and remoteness, and sit, in as nearly polite old-fashioned native style as our lack of physical training would permit, upon the cushions transferred to the floor. In this way when our callers, who included such truly gentle men and ladies as the Mayor of the city and his wife, the steward of the Count, the daughter of an ex-Mayor of Osaka, Baron Kimata, the venerable Doctor Nakashima, for thirty years a pillar of the church and a prosperous physician, Mr. Kitamura, whose father was a retainer and served as secretary of the Baroness Ii, and others, came in, knelt upon the floor and touched their heads three times to the mats, we, too, could return their salutations with the same delightfully elaborate but now rapidly vanishing attention to the etiquette of playing host and guest.

The reception over, with its accompaniment of tea served in ceremonial cups, we were urged, in spite of our protest that we had had dinner upon the train, to a bountiful feast. This, too, was of a mixed character; part of it taken from two large hampers of foreign food sent on from our hotel in Kyoto, and part of it fish from the lake, cooked a la Japonaise and served on pretty shell-shaped plates, rice in covered bowls manufactured in Hikoné in the days of the great Baron, and other native viands, made more tempting by the harmonious suggestions of the dishes in which they were served. Such delicate pleasures of suggestion, also, belong to the art of living as practiced in feudal Japan. And when, notwithstanding remonstrance, the dishes themselves were divided between guests and hosts,—the portion of the latter to be retained, it was explained, as “memorabilia of the honour of being permitted to serve, etc.,”—this, too, was quite in the spirit of the time when Ii Kamon-no-Kami was lord of Hikoné.

After the supper we were led to the large audience-hall of the former villa, where all the shoji were plain gold-leaf and the ceilings chastely but beautifully panelled; here we were fairly compelled to sit in the throne-like chairs on the raised alcove, which was in feudal times reserved exclusively for the lord of the clan. The cold made the combined efforts at heating of a modern oil-stove at the back, with antique hibachi on either hand, by no means ungrateful. Beside each of the guests knelt an interpreter, who was to announce the different numbers and translate their comments on the music; while all the hosts sat ranged along the other side of the hall, native fashion on the floor. Thus a somewhat weird but vivid and interesting picture, reminiscent of the older times, was made by this large and dimly lighted baronial hall, in which the lord of Hikoné may well enough himself have listened to some of the same music which was played for us. The first number on the programme proved to be a selection of the oldest style of Japanese concerted music; it was played on three different kinds of flute by three young men, all dressed in dark silk kimonos and in head-dress of two hundred years ago. Then two pretty girls, beautifully gowned and with faces powdered and lips tinted vermillion and gold,—the ancient manner of decoration in such cases,—together with their teachers, played a Spring “nocturne” on three Kotos, or Japanese harps. Other selections followed; and the concert closed with a queer fugue-like performance on Chinese flutes—one short and the other a full yard long, but both gaily decorated with silken cords and tassels.

The evening’s entertainment over, we returned to our room, which had now been converted into a bed-chamber in truly royal native style. Six large wadded futons, three to lie upon and three for covering, all made of fine silk, had been laid upon the floor, with quilts rolled up and tied together for pillows, and lead tanks covered with a soft flannel and filled with hot water to secure additional warmth. For the thin wooden shutters which enclosed the piazza and the paper shoji within, however closely drawn, could not serve efficiently to keep out the cold, snow-laden wind. It was part of the stately fashion with which everything was conducted, to assure us that all the bedding was quite new and had never been used before.

In the morning, when the room had been again prepared for its day-time uses, the beauty of its screens and other simple furnishings, painted in raised chrysanthemums by one of the Kano school, was made the more charming by the light reflected from the snow-covered ground and cloudy sky. The garden was a picture such as can be seen only in Japan; its tiny curved stone-bridge over an artificial pond, the dark green twisted pines, the stately mountains in the distance; and all covered with fresh-fallen snow—a landscape made dignified by nature and exquisite by man.

The later morning hours were occupied with receiving calls, each one of which bore some fragrance of the memory of the man who had, as the sons and daughters of his retainers firmly believed, sacrificed his life in the country’s cause. For still in Hikoné, the memory of Ii Kamon-no-Kami, and the pride in him, confer a certain title to distinction upon every citizen of the place. And not only this; but we, being Americans and so of the people with whose representative their feudal lord had joined himself to bring about a period of peaceful and friendly intercourse between the two nations, were expected to sympathise with them in this feeling. In genuine old-fashioned style, many of these visitors brought with them some gift. Among these gifts was a small bit of dainty handiwork, made by the Baroness Ii and given to the father of the man who gave it to us, in recognition of his services as her secretary. It was the sincerity and simple dignity of these tokens of friendship which raised their bestowal above all suspicion of sinister motive, and made it easier for the foreigners to receive them and to transport themselves into the atmosphere of the “Old Japan.”

The afternoon of this day was set aside for the lecture, which was to be held in the large room of one of the city’s Primary-School buildings. On reaching the school we found the flags of both countries—the two that Ii Kamon-no-Kami and Townsend Harris had bound together by Treaty, a half-century ago—hung over the door, and at the back of the platform on which the speaker was to stand. But before he could begin, the guests must be presented to yet other of their hosts, who also came to leave in their hands testimonials of their pride in Ii Kamon-no-Kami and of the good-will of Hikoné to the visitors from the United States.

One will not easily find elsewhere a more intelligent and serious audience than the 500 who sat upon the floor of the school-room in the castle-town of the patriot Naosuké, on the afternoon of February 3, 1907. One will probably not find at all, outside of Japan, in a place of the same size, so many persons to listen so patiently to so long a discourse on similar themes. For the talk in English and its interpretation into Japanese required more than two solid hours. Nor could this time, of itself, suffice. There must also be elaborate thanks returned by the steward of the present Count, in the city’s name; and to the thanks a reply by the lecturer, both extended to a proper length. For such deliberateness in doing what it is thought worth while to do at all, is also characteristic of the time when Ii Kamon-no-Kami or the other Japanese Barons discussed with Townsend Harris every point of the Treaty, during the months so trying to the patience and ingenuity of both parties.

The lecture over, and greetings and leave-takings exchanged, the foreign guests were escorted to the station by a long row of following jinrikishas. In the private room of the station-master the time of waiting was spent in anecdotes and stories reminiscent of that disturbed and critical but glorious past. The chief of police who had been attendant, in order to give dignity to the occasion and to secure the visitors from the least shadow of annoyance—danger there was none—now comes forward to be presented and be thanked. Tea and cakes are served; and these are followed by renewed expressions of gratitude and friendship. In spite of remonstrance, the sweet-faced old doctor and the Christian pastor are instructed to accompany us all the way back to our hotel in Kyoto. And when, after renewed expressions of esteem for Ii Kamon-no-Kami and of the friendship for us and for our country, we send our escort back to Hikoné by the midnight train, we certainly—and I trust—they also, had pleasant and permanent memories established, connected with the beautiful castle-town on Lake Biwa and its now honoured, old-time feudal lord.

And I, for my part, had certain impressions confirmed by this interesting visit to the home of the famous lord of Hikoné. It is in the country places of Japan, and especially in its old feudal towns, that the choicest products of its characteristic civilisation are, at present, to be found. Here the virtues of chivalry chiefly linger; here these virtues are being combined with the intelligent outlook over the world imparted by modern education and with some of the virtues which are in particular fostered by the faith of Christianity. The result is a charming type of manhood and womanhood which the Western World may well admire, and, in some respects, emulate. It is this spirit of chivalry which has carried the nation along its wonderful career down to the present time. And it is the hope of the thoughtful Japanese, as well as of their sympathising foreign friends, that this spirit will not be quenched by the inpouring of the commercial spirit of the modern age.

Again also, it was impressed upon my mind that no other of the formerly “hermit nations” has hitherto incurred such grave risks in yielding to Western forces for its so-called “opening,” as did Japan in the years from 1853 to 1868. But then, no other nation has reaped such benefits from the yielding. For Japan was opened—the great majority of its leaders and people being reluctant and hostile—by the display of a superior force of Western armament and at the risk of having the national life deluged, if not extinguished, in blood. Yet the heart of the nation has learned to respond with gratitude to those who brought about such a turning of the door which had hitherto been closed to the world, upon the hinges of destiny. “Commodore Perry,” said Count Okuma to the writer some years ago, “was the best friend Japan ever had.” With the name of the Commodore we may fitly couple that of the Consul-General, Townsend Harris; and we may not unfitly add that one of the best foreign friends which the United States ever had was the Japanese Tairō, Baron Ii Kamon-no-Kami. When we remember what risks his nation ran, under his leadership, in order to solve peacefully the vexed question of foreign trade and foreign residence, may we not also remind ourselves of the propriety that somewhat more of the same spirit of chivalry should govern our conduct in dealing with the same question, now that a half-century of continued friendship has bound together the two nations, whose representatives—the one so patiently, the other so bravely—solved it in that older time of agitation and threatened disaster?