sel
that visited their shores once a year served as an annual newspaper, and
satisfied their curiosity as to the doings of mankind. The goods it
brought were little cared for, Japan being sufficient unto itself, so
that it served merely as a window to the world. Once a year a delegation
from the Dutch settlement visited the capital, but the visitors
travelled almost like prisoners, and were forced to crawl in to the
mikado on their hands and knees and to back out again in the same
crab-like fashion. Some of these envoys wrote accounts of what they had
seen, and that was all that was known of Japan for two centuries.

This state of affairs could not continue. With the opening of the
nineteenth century the ships of Europe began to make their way in large
numbers to the North Pacific, and efforts were made to force open the
locked gates of Japan. Some sought for food and water. These could be
had at Nagasaki, but nowhere else, and were given with a warning to move
on. In some cases shipwrecked Japanese were brought back in foreign
vessels, but according to law such persons were looked upon as no longer
Japanese, and no welcome was given to those who brought them. In other
cases wrecked whalers and other mariners sought safety on Japanese soil,
but they were held strict prisoners, and rescued only with great
difficulty. The law was that foreigners landing anywhere on the coast,
except at Nagasaki, should be seized and condemned to perpetual
imprisonment, and that those landing at Nagasaki must strictly abstain
from Christian worship.

Meanwhile the Russians had become, through their Siberian ports, near
neighbors of Japan, and sought to open trade with that country. In 1793
Lieutenant Laxman landed at Hakodate and travelled overland to Matsumai,
bringing with him some shipwrecked Japanese and seeking for commercial
relations with Japan. He was treated with courtesy, but dismissed
without an answer to his demand, and told that he could take his
Japanese back with him or leave them as he pleased.

In 1804 the Russians came again, this time to Nagasaki. This vessel also
brought back some shipwrecked Japanese, and had on board a Russian
count, sent as ambassador from the czar. But the shogun refused to
receive the ambassador or to accept his presents, and sent him word that
Japan had little need of foreign productions, and got all it wanted from
the Dutch and Chinese. All this was said with great politeness, but the
ambassad