The Best Adventure and Exploration Stories Ever Told

by Stephen Brennan

  The situation was unique, not likely to be forgotten by any who participated in it, either American or Japanese. It was a clear and calm summer morning, As our lines disembarked and formed on the beach, the commodore stepped into his barge to follow us. Instantly the black “fireships” were wrapped in white clouds of smoke, and the thunder of their salute echoed among the hills and groves back of the village. To the startled spectators on shore they must have seemed suddenly transformed into floating volcanoes. And when the great man landed, they gazed with wonder, for no mortal eye (no Japanese mortal) had been permitted to look upon him before. In all the negotiations hitherto he had played their own game and veiled himself in mystery. They could communicate with so lofty a being only through his subordinates. This was not child’s play. It was not an assumption of pomp inconsistent with republican simplicity. Commodore Perry was dealing with an oriental potentate according to oriental ideas. He showed his sagacity in doing so. At this time he was fifty-nine years old, a man of splendid physique and commanding presence. He had already lived through a varied experience that had helped to train him for this culminating achievement of his life. Endowed with strong native powers he had risen in mental capacity and executive force with every stage of his professional career.

  The War of 1812, in which also his famous brother Oliver Hazard and two younger brothers served, gave him his first baptism of fire; and later the Mexican War, service in various parts of the world civilized and savage, duties on naval boards at home, investigations and experiments in naval science, naval architecture, naval education—these and numberless other methods of serving his country both in the professional routine and in general affairs, had developed his judgment, his mental acumen, his breadth of vision, his knowledge of men; and thus had prepared him for his high mission as ambassador and diplomat. Unquestionably his insight into the oriental mind, his firmness and persistence, his stalwart physical presence, his portly bearing, his dignity, his poise, his stately courtesy were prime factors in his success as a negotiator with an Eastern court. He was the right kind of man for America to send on such an errand to such a people.

  On his arrival we marched to the hall through an avenue of soldiers, our escort being formed of sailors and marines from the four ships. Leaving the escort drawn up on the beach, the forty officers entered. We found ourselves within a broad canopied court of cotton hangings, carpeted with white, overlaid in the center with a scarlet breadth for a pathway leading to and extending up on the raised floor of the hall beyond. Many two-sworded officials in state robes were kneeling on either side of this flaming track. Within the hall sat—not in Japanese fashion but on chairs—the imperial commissioners, the princes Idzu and Iwami, surrounded by their kneeling suite. They were both men of some years, fifty or sixty perhaps; Idzu a pleasant intellectual-looking man, Iwami’s features narrow and somewhat disfigured by the smallpox; both were attired in magnificent robes richly embroidered in silver and gold. Vacant seats opposite the commissioners were taken by the commodore and his staff. Between the lines were the interpreters, on one side a native scholar on his knees, on the other erect and dignified the official interpreter of the squadron, S. Wells Williams LL.D., a well-know author and missionary in China. Behind them stood a scarlet lacquered chest that was destined to receive the fateful missive for conveyance to court. Overhead in rich folds drooped the purple silk hangings profusely decorated with the imperial arms and the national bird, the stork.

  I had scarcely noted these few details and glanced at the genial face of Bayard Taylor as he stood behind the commodore taking notes, when the ceremony began. It was very brief. A few words between the interpreters, and then, at a signal, two boys in blue entered followed then by two stalwart Negroes, probably the first to be seen on the landscape of Japan. In slow and impressive fashion the two men brought in the rosewood boxes that contained the mysterious papers. These were opened in silence and laid on the scarlet coffer. Price Iwami handed to the interpreters a formal receipt for the documents. The commodore announced that he should return the next spring for the reply. A brief conversation in answer to a question about the progress of the Taiping Rebellion in China, and the conference closed, having lasted not more than twenty minutes. A short ceremony, and witnessed by not more than fifty or sixty persons out of the entire populations of both the great countries engaged; but it was the opening of Japan. It brought together as neighbors and friends two nations that were the antipodes of each other not only in position on the globe but in almost every element of their two types of civilization.

  That the Japanese have themselves appreciated the significance of this memorable meeting appears in the amazing historical developments that have followed all over the empire along the lines of commerce, industrial art, education, and religion, and is shows also by innumerable public utterances from the platform and press; and they have recently commemorated the occasion by erecting a monument at Kurihama in honor of the American commodore. But this later material can wait until the end of the chapter; we will keep on here with the main story.

  This first act of the mission was now achieved, and the squadron rested from its labors. A great weight was lifted off its mind. The next day, with lightened conscience, it set itself to the easier task of surveying and sounding the bay, exploring future harbors, locating islands and rocks, measuring distances, and plotting charts. These uncanny operations were watched with some solicitude by the coast guards. They offered no active opposition, though once or twice we had occasion to show how thoroughly each boat was armed and ready for emergencies. The Saratoga, not willing to be outdone in this hydrographic work, located one shoal with undoubted accuracy by running upon it full tilt. Fortunately the wind was light and the bottom smooth; no harm was done to either ship or shoal. We were not proud of the achievement; but the commodore did us the honor to immortalize it and us by naming the sandbar the “Saratoga Spit”; and that title it bears to this day. Some years later it acquired a tragic interest when the U.S.S. Oneida, coming down the bay to sail for home, was run into in the night and sunk by the British mailship Bombay. She went down close by the “Saratoga Spit,” carrying with her most of her hapless crew.

  A few days after the Kurihama conference we left the Empire of the Rising Sun and returned to the Central Flowery Kingdom. On the seventeenth of July, as silently as they had entered nine days before, the two frigates steamed out of the bay with the two ships in tow. Outside they separated and went their several ways; the two steamers and the Plymouth back to Lew Chew and the Saratoga to Shanghai. We parted in a storm. If our Japanese friends could have seen our belabored ships scuttling away into the darkness and foam they would have taken it for a special interposition of their wind-god, wreaking vengeance on the Western barbarians for their temerity. The gale grew into a tempest, and the tempest into a typhoon, the largest through not the most vicious of the four encountered by the Saratoga in those uneasy seas. We compared the logbooks afterward of several ships that were caught in different sections of its enormous circuit and found that it was more than 1,000 miles in diameter and, in its progress, swept over the larger part of the north Pacific Ocean. It raged for several days, and every vessel in our fleet got entangled in some part of its vortex. Our own ship, the Saratoga, was under orders for Shanghai; and after the gale struck us, with battened hatches and sea-swept decks, we rode on the outer rim of that cyclone almost all the way back into the mouth of the Yang-tse-keang. It was riding a wild steed, as all sailors know who have tried it, but we got to Shanghai all the quicker. Six months we lay there at anchor off the American consulate. It was the time of the Taiping rebellion. As if to give us further object lessons in the oriental way of making history, one night the Taipings inside the walls rose and captured the city. The imperialist forces came down from Peking to retake it. And about once in three days we were treated to a Chinese battle—sometimes an assault by land, sometimes a bombardment by the fleet of forty or fifth junks; all very dramatic and spectacular,
occasionally tragic, frequently funny. But, as Kipling says, that is another story and deserves a chapter of its own.

  Meanwhile here is the place for a codicil in which to record the Kurihama celebrations just referred to. During autumn of 1900, Rear Admiral Beardslee, retired and traveling in Japan, took occasion to revisit the scene of the famous landing. In 1853 he was young midshipman on board the Plymouth, and was in charge of one of the boats of the flotilla. He easily identified the spot and finding it neglected brought it to the attention of the Beiyu-Kwai—“Society of Friends of America”—who assumed the patriotic task of renovating the place and commemorating the event. The occasion truly was an inspiring one. On 14 July 1901, which was the forty-eighth anniversary of the conference, and on the spot where the hall of conference stood, there assembled a distinguished company of dignitaries of the empire, the officials of the Beiyu-Kwai, Admiral Beardslee and other representative Americans, together with many thousands interested spectators. Baron Kaneko presided and addressed the company. Other addresses followed, from the American minister Colonel Buck, from Viscount Katsura, from Admirals Rodgers and Beardslee, U.S.N., and also from the Governor of Kanagawa. It was felicitous circumstance that when the supreme moment came the monument was unveiled by Admiral Rodgers, a grandson of Commodore Perry and at that time commanding the American squadron in the East. The memorial is a shaft of unpolished granite standing on a massive base and rising to a height over all of thirty-three feet. The side facing the bay bears this inscription in Japanese:

  This monument marks the landing place of

  Commodore Perry of United States of

  North America. Marquis Ito Hirobumi,

  Highest Order of Merit.

  On the reverse is an inscription in English:

  This monument commemorates the

  first arrival of Commodore Perry,

  Ambassador from the United States of America,

  who landed at this place July 14, 1853.

  Erected July 14, 1901.

  This solid memorial will forever dignify the little Japanese hamlet of Kurihama as the birthplace of the new Japan and the scene of the beginnings of a great international friendship.

  In this epilogue belongs also the record of another celebration more recent and of a more personal flavor. The Japanese in foreign lands have a patriotic custom of strengthening the home ties by celebrating the birthday of their emperor, which falls on the third of November. The year 1903 marked a half century from the first landing of the Perry expedition on Japanese soil, and Mr. Uchida, the Japanese consul-general in New York, conceived the happy idea of adding still further prestige to the usual celebration by commemorating that famous event. Invitations were issued to the descendants of commodore Perry and to the now few survivors of the fleet. Out of the more than two thousand officers and men who composed the personnel of the expedition, less than a score are known to be living, three of whom were present at the reception.

  To these three, who had not met for a half a century, it may well be imagined the occasion was impressive, not to say thrilling. The forty or fifty Japanese gentlemen and the ladies present, and as many more Americans, some of them descendants of the famous commodore, and others who had been resident in the Mikado’s dominions or were specially interested in the country and its people, made a most brilliant assemblage. The memories were indeed inspiring.

  The half century had enlarged the dimensions of the event; rather had brought out and developed its natural results along the lines of trade, industrial art, commerce, education, intellectual and moral enlightenment, and so splendidly that the growing light reflected back on the original act and revealed its magnitude. With these sentiments were also mingled tender thoughts of shipmates long since gone and memories of scenes that made us sigh:

  —for the touch of a vanished hand,

  And the sound of a voice that is still.

  On the walls hung a large old time colored lithograph representing the landing at Kurihama, a print struck off soon after the return of the fleet and loaned for the occasion by one of the commodore’s daughters. Near it was a companion picture of the same size, a photograph of the Perry monument at Kurihama.

  After the social hour, the consul called his guests to order and made an address of welcome, alluding to the emperor, the expedition, and the presence of some who had been members of it. Two other brief speeches were made, one by Admiral Rodgers, a grandson of the old commodore, who spoke of his grandfather’s mission of Japan, his own service in the East, and the unveiling of the Kurihama monument. The other was by one of the survivors and was, or course, largely reminiscent of those distant scene and descriptive of our famous old commander. It gives one a funny sensation to stand before a brilliant company as a relic of some ancient bit of history, and be watched by such curious eyes while you step out of your own past generation into the light of modern times to make your speech!

  When the tables were brought in for the banquet, it fell to us three “relics” with three or four friends to surround the same board—a sumptuous improvement on a middies’ mess in the steerage of a man-of-war and seasoned with high memories. As we broke bread together and the current of converse moved swiftly on, it seemed almost as if we were surrounded by the unseen forms of messmates who had long since sailed on to the haven beyond. And back of all was the thought of the Sunrise Kingdom herself, the hermit land of half a century ago, so exclusive, so mysterious, but now so teeming with the activities of a new civilization, the resources of a new power, and all the dignity and responsibility of a new place in the world. The occasion itself, the sentiments it inspired, and the distinguished company uniting in the celebration, all combined to make it a memorable evening.

  THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO

  MARCO POLO

  Know reader, that the time when Baldwin II was Emperor of Constantinople, where a magistrate representing the Doge of Venice then resided, and in the year of our Lord 1250, Nicolo Polo, the father of the said Marco, and Maffeo, the brother of Nicolo, respectable and well-informed men, embarked in a ship of their own, with a rich and varied cargo of goods, and reached Constantinople in safety. After mature deliberation on the subject of their proceedings, it was determined, as the measure most likely to improve their trading capital, that they should prosecute their voyage into the Euxine or Black Sea. With this view they made purchases of many fine and costly jewels, and taking their departure from Constantinople, navigated that sea to a port name Soldaia, from whence they travelled on horseback many days until they reached the court of a powerful chief of the Western Tartars, named Barka VI who dwelt in the cities of Bolgara and Assara, and had the reputation of being one of the most liberal and civilized princes hitherto known amongst the tribes of Tartary. He expressed much satisfaction at the arrival of these travelers, and received them with marks of distinction. In return for which courtesy, when they had laid before him the jewels they brought with them, and perceived that their beauty pleased him, they presented them for his acceptance. The liberality of this conduct on the part of the two brothers struck him with admiration; and being unwilling that they should surpass him in generosity, he not only directed double the value of the jewels to be paid to them, but made them in addition several other rich presents.

  The brothers having resided a year in the dominions of this prince, they became desirous of revisiting their native country, but were impeded by the sudden breaking out of a war between him and another chief, named Alaù, who ruled over the Eastern Tartars. In the fierce and very bloody battle that ensued between their respective armies, Alaù was victorious, in consequence of which, the roads being rendered unsafe for travellers, the brothers could not attempt to return by the way they came; and it was recommended to them as the only practicable mode of reaching Constantinople, to proceed in an easterly direction, by an unfrequented route, so as to skirt the limits of Barka’s territories. Accordingly they made their way to a town named Oukaka, situated on the confines of the kingdom of the Wes
tern Tartars. Leaving that place, and advancing still further, they crossed the Tigris, one of the four rivers of Paradise, and came to a desert, the extent of which was seventeen days’ journey, wherein they found neither town, castle, nor any substantial building, but only Tartars with their herds, dwelling in tents on the plain. Having passed this tract, they arrived at length at a well-built city called Bokhara, a province of that name belonging to the dominions of Persia, and the noblest city of that kingdom, but governed by a prince whose name was Barak. Here, from inability to proceed further, they remained three years.

  It happened while these brothers were in Bokhara, that a person of consequence and gifted with eminent talents made his appearance there. He was proceeding as ambassador from Alaù before mentioned, to the Grand Khan, supreme chief of all the Tartars named Kublai, whose resident was at the extremity of the continent, in a direction between north-east and east. Not having ever before had an opportunity, although he wished it, of seeing any natives of Italy, he was gratified in a high degree at meeting and conversing with these brothers, who had now become proficients in the Tartar language; and after associating with them for several days, and finding their manners agreeable to him, he proposed to them that they should accompany him to the presence of the Great Khan, who would be pleased by their appearance at his court, which had not hitherto been visited by any person from their country; adding assurances that they would be honourably received, and recompensed with many gifts. Convinced as they were that their endeavours to return homeward would expose them to the most imminent risks, they agreed to this proposal, and recommending themselves to the protection of the Almighty, they set out on their journey in the suite of the ambassador, attended by several Christian servants whom they had brought with them from Venice. The course they took at first was between the north-east and north, and an entire year was consumed before they were enabled to reach the imperial residence, in consequence of the extraordinary delays occasioned by the snows and the swelling of the rivers, which obliged them to halt until the former had melted and the floods had subsided. Many things worthy of admiration were observed by them in the progress of their journey, but which are here omitted, as they will be described by Marco Polo, in the sequel of the book.