Shades of the Past

by Harold Williams

In this article we are interested not in apportioning the blame for a most unhappy affair, but rather in a young woman with black and lustrous eyes.

  Following the murder a story circulated that when Richardson called for water a young woman who conducted a small roadside teahouse nearby brought him the drink that he so desperately needed. However, her own evidence which had been given before the British Consul, who conducted an inquiry, completely disproved the story, but that did not prevent the legend from growing. To Black-Eyed Susan—the name by which the young woman came to be familiarly known—was given the credit for mercifully tending Richardson when all others passed him by.

  Thereafter her business prospered immensely and few foreigners passed along the Tokaido without stopping for refreshments at her house. The four-horse coaches, known as the "Yedo Mail," which left Yokohama in the morning for the Foreign Settlement at Tsukiji in Tokyo, and which returned to Yokohama in the evening, always stopped at Black-Eyed Susan's which had then become quite famous for its clams.

  With the passing of the years the myth grew, assisted not a little by Black-Eyed Susan herself, who had grown more garrulous and would describe to her customers in vivid and imaginative detail how she had tended the stricken Richardson and quenched his thirst during his last few minutes upon this earth. Finally a time came when she was no longer seen dispensing clams in her teahouse. Presumably she had moved on to the realms to which Richardson had passed many years before.

  But the name of Black-Eyed Susan had caught the imagination of the foreign community in Yokohama—the legend lived—and as the years went by that same name came to be bestowed upon numerous other young ladies in other establishments, some less reputable, all of whom came to enjoy the patronage that went to those who bore that name, and so could reap the benefit of the goodwill that accrued from the handing of a mythical cup of water to a dying man.

  MURDER

  NEAR

  THE

  DAIBUTSU

  The criminal kneeles downe on his knees and then comes the Executioner behind him and cuts off his head with a Catan.—Letter by Rev. ARTHUR HATCH, 1623

  Shimizu Seiji was a brave man and a patriot of sorts. Unfortunately disappointments and frustrations had so embittered him that whatever virtues he possessed were not exercised to the benefit of his country. Tragically he opposed the policy of his country by resorting to a cold-blooded and cowardly murder and in so doing allied himself with a craven wight named Mamiya Hajime.

  It happened in November, 1864. An English regiment, the 20th Foot, was then stationed in barracks on the Bluff at Yokohama as guards for the Yokohama Foreign Settlement. Two of the officers, Major Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird had gone on a sightseeing trip on horseback to Enoshima and then to Kamakura. After visiting the Daibutsu they turned into the pine avenue that runs towards the sea shore. There they were suddenly attacked by two ronin. Details of the murder were provided by several Japanese witnesses—the principal being a boy of twelve—and written confessions subsequently taken by the Japanese police from the murderers.

  Yokohama had been opened to foreign trade for five years. Japan was emerging from a feudal age. The structure of government and the customs of the country were rapidly changing. Shimizu Seiji, although twenty-five years of age and the son of a samurai, could find no lord who needed his services. Sadly he hid his two swords and became a labourer. He resented the opening of the country to foreigners and he resolved to kill as many as he could. He thereupon joined forces with another masterless samurai—a ronin—as poor and as unhappy as himself. After borrowing some money and buying new clothes, they set out together for Yokohama each wearing their two swords. Finding the Settlement too well guarded and with few opportunities for a surprise attack, they moved on to Kamakura with the intention of ambushing the first foreigners who came their way.

  Whilst waiting in the pine avenue they shouted roughly at a Japanese boy loitering nearby ordering him to go away. The boy hastily scrambled over a nearby embankment and hid in the bushes, thereby becoming a witness to what followed.

  Two foreign horsemen were seen approaching from the Daibutsu; Baldwin was ahead followed at a distance of about ten yards by Bird. The two ronin hiding behind a large pine tree, slashed at Baldwin as he came level with the tree. The unfortunate officer fell from his horse whereupon they attacked Bird. The boy then saw Baldwin, bloodstained and holding a revolver, rise and totter towards the embankment, but the precise sequence of the subsequent happenings could not be ascertained for certain and remains a mystery.

  The evidence of other Japanese witnesses indicated that the two unfortunate officers had lived for some time after the attack and had spoken to each other; yet the post-mortem examination made by an English doctor showed that, in addition to terrible cuts on his arms and legs, Bird's head was almost severed from his body and that he could not have lived for a moment after receiving that wound. It was therefore supposed by some that Baldwin had died first and that Bird was later despatched by the ronin, or other miscreants, in order to remove him as a witness. Whether this was actually so was never ascertained and remains in doubt.

  The Japanese police spared no effort in the hunt for the murderers, a sharp watch in particular being maintained in the notorious teahouses of Shinagawa. A few weeks later the landlord of one of those houses reported to the police that he suspected one of the wanted men was in his house. Shimizu Seiji was thereupon immediately arrested and under threat of torture made a full confession. The sentence that was subsequently passed by the Japanese Court read:

  In consideration of the enormity of the crime of which he is guilty, Seiji is to be brought to Yokohama and after he has been led around the principal streets of the town on horseback, so that he may be seen by all, he is to be beheaded with a sword on the public execution ground.

  When conducted through Yokohama on the day of his execution, Seiji sat firmly in the saddle and showed no signs of fear. On four or five occasions he harangued the crowd:

  ....I am a ronin.....I am to die merely because I cut down foreigners.... These are indeed bad times for Japan when a samurai must die merely because he cut down a barbarian. This evening my head will fall into the pit....You will then look upon a face that knew not fear even in death..... The death of a common criminal awaits me.....Men of Yokohama, tell the patriots of Japan that the ronin Seiji did not tremble in the face of death.

  At the execution site he walked proudly and steadily to where the executioner awaited him. He adjusted the mat upon which he should kneel so that his head might better fall into the pit. He loosened his kimono to better expose his neck for the fatal blow. He enquired whether the executioner was well prepared and directed that the sword be wetted with hot water that it might cut well. He made a final speech of defiance against all foreigners, then stretching out his neck he gave in a clear voice the final word to the executioner that he was ready to die: "Yoi."

  The gory head was exhibited on a pike for two days at the entrance to Yokohama.

  Not so did his craven accomplice die. Mamiya, fortified with drink, was dragged drunk and babbling to the execution pit. There whimpering he attempted to run away. He had to be forced to the ground where he was slaughtered.

  In a shady grove in the old section of the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery there are two old lichen-covered tombstones sacred to the memory of Major Geo. W. Baldwin and Lieut. Robert N. Bird of H.B.M. II Batt., XX Regt. According to the inscription these men were:

  Cruelly assassinated by

  Japanese at Kamakura

  Nov. 21, 1864

  When returning from

  DIEBOOTS

  to

  YOKOHAMA

  It is a well-known fact to all who live near the pine avenue at Kamakura that a strange murmuring can be heard there almost any evening. To me it seems to be the evening breeze stirring among the pine branches, but the present-day residents who have heard it more often, and are therefore in a better position to form an opinion, say that it sounds li
ke whisperings in some foreign tongue, but beyond that they seem to have no clear idea of what it is.

  The story of the murder of Major Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird is probably unknown to almost all the present day residents of Kamakura. But there was a time many years ago when some of the oldest Japanese residents in those parts told me that on certain evenings, if you went out alone and sat quietly in the pine avenue, you could hear the faint whisperings and groans of the English officers, the approach of footsteps, followed immediately by an agonized cry, retreating footsteps, then silence.

  SOME

  CHRISTMAS

  DAYS

  OF

  LONG

  AGO

  I am a man not unknown in Rat cliffe and Limehouse.

  WILL ADAMS, 1611

  As each Christmas comes around it is customary for most of us to look back on past Christmases that linger in our memory, of Christmas festivities in which we personally participated or of those in other times and climes as depicted on our Christmas cards or recorded in the pages of history.

  The first Christmas celebration in Japan was by the Portuguese in about the middle of the sixteenth century, and the observance of those Christmas services was described by several Jesuit priests writing from Japan around that time. During the next fifty-five years or so, until Christianity was outlawed from Japan, such Christmas services and observances were regularly and publicly held. Thereafter all such Christian services were carried out in great secrecy.

  Many Christmases have passed since Will Adams, the English pilot and the first Englishman to come to Japan, ate his first Christmas dinner in Japan. That was in 1600.

  Will Adams died in Japan twenty years later. Some of those Christmases were spent in the company of his friends in the Dutch trading house at Hirado, some at the table of his English associates in the English House also at Hirado, some at his home in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, with his Japanese wife and child, some at his country estate near Yokosuka, and some at sea.

  The Christmas dinners in Hirado comprised an abundant spread of soup, fish, shellfish, venison, "wilde-fowle, wilde-Boare, the largest and fattest that ever any of us had seene," "pickeld Herbes, Beanes, Raddishes and other Roots," chestnuts, walnuts and fruit in abundance. In addition there were conserves and other delicacies obtained from the Chinese merchants in Nagasaki. There was Japanese sake, and at times, but not always, brandy and Continental wines.

  (As holly without berries has little appeal at Christmas, it is interesting to speculate whether the idea of wiring nanten (nandina domestica) berries onto Japanese holly branches was first thought of at those early Christmas celebrations or whether it was invented by enterprising Japanese florists two and a half centuries later.)

  The first attempt by the English to trade with Japan was made by the English East India Company and was a failure. For ten years from 1613 to 1623 the Cross of St. George flew over the English House at Hirado in Kyushu and during that time Richard Cocks, the Head Merchant, made a number of business trips through the Inland Sea to Osaka or rather "Osackay" as he quaintly spelled the name. Such journeys to Osaka were not without serious dangers; the junks frequently stranded on the shoals which at that time formed a dangerous bar across the entrance to Osaka. Cocks described one such entry:

  .....As we passed the flattes of Osackay, we were on grownd divers tymes, yet, God be praised, we gott well offe againe, and arrived at Osackay at 3 a clock in thafter nowne; but at the same place saw one bark cast away, laden with stones for the making of the castell, but all the people saved.....

  Similar journeys were made by the Dutch merchants and were likewise described in detail, especially by Engelbert Kaempfer, the German doctor at the Dutch House at Nagasaki at a somewhat later date, references being made to Taromi, Sijwoja, Summa and Fiogo, which curious spellings some readers may recognize as being for Tarumi, Shioya, Suma and Hyogo.

  During one such trip in December, 1618, Cocks was hopeful of reaching Osaka on Christmas Day, but meeting with adverse winds was compelled to spend Christmas Day in Hyogo. He relates in his diary that he gave rice and fish "to all our barkmen to dyner this day with a barso of wine in respect of Christmas Day "

  Not unlikely his own Christmas dinner was taken ashore also in Japanese style; in any case it was in all probability the first occasion on which an Englishman had partaken of Christmas dinner in Hyogo, or Kobe as we know it to-day.

  Not unlikely also Cocks went for a walk that Christmas Day under the pine trees on the fine sandy shore which then stretched from where the Hyogo wharves are to-day through what is now the Mitsubishi Dockyard, and around past Wada Point.

  After the English East India Company closed their trading post in Hirado the Dutch had the field almost to themselves. Then when Japan interdicted Christianity and slammed shut her doors in the face of the world, the Dutch were cooped up in the little island of Deshima in Nagasaki harbour where for over two hundred years they ate their Christmas dinners, and celebrated Christmas as best they might without Christian observances, unless in secret. In the matter of food, drink, and such other comforts as they required, the Dutch did not do too badly. The domestic market of Nagasaki supplied their wants. There was a rich variety of food, for which they were charged especially high prices, added to which there were some opportunities for smuggling schnapps and other liquor from the Dutch trading ships, quite apart from the regular supplies which they were permitted to bring in.

  There was however a thin period of four years from 1809 to 1813 when, owing to the war in Europe, the Dutch flag was largely driven from the seas and no ships whatever arrived from Batavia. To replace their shoes which wore out, they improvised shoes from Japanese straw sandals covered with undressed leather and they converted old carpets into clothing. For liquor they attempted to distil gin and corn spirit, to brew beer, and to make wine from wild grapes, but not with much success. For several Christmas dinners all they had in the way of alcoholic drinks was a gin that tasted of resinous juniper, a corn whisky that was passing good, a beer that only kept four days, and a murky fermented liquor which they all agreed was not wine.

  Townsend Harris, the first U.S. Consul-General to Japan eventually celebrated many Christmas days in Japan, but the first in 1856, before Japan had been opened to foreign trade was a lonely and unhappy one, and was spent in Shimoda. The only foreign company he had was his young Dutch interpreter. On that day he made the following entry in his diary.

  Merry Christmas! How happy are those who live in lands where those joyous greetings can be exchanged! As for me, I am sick and solitary, living, as one may say, in a prison; a large one it is true but still a prison.

  After the English House withdrew from Japan in 1623, which was just about the time that the Pilgrim Fathers had established themselves in America, no other Christmas Days were spent in Hyogo or in Kobe by Englishmen until the sad Christmas Day of 1867.

  About six British and five American men-of-war were then gathered off Hyogo in preparation for the opening of the port to take place on New Year's Day.

  An officer, Lieutenant Turnor of the British flagship H.M.S. "Rodney," had died of heart disease a few days before, and Asst. Surgeon Charles H. Page of the U.S. Navy had died of consumption on board U.S.S. "Hartford" on the previous day. By arrangement with the Japanese authorities a plot of land near the mouth of the old Ikuta River was set apart as a cemetery and there on Christmas Day, 1867, two naval burials took place. The dead thus preceded the living in the foreign settlement of Kobe.

  Nearly 1200 years ago Kukai, a Buddhist priest, later known as Kobo Daishi, the most famous of all the Japanese Buddhist saints, twice visited the mountains behind Kobe thereby giving the name of Futa-tabi—signifying twice visited—to that mountain. He was searching for a suitable location on which to found a monastery, but decided against the Kobe Hills because of their restricted area. It was at Koyasan across the bay near the edge of Yamato province that he founded the great monastery. There his last years in a life of incr
edible toil were spent, and there he was buried, or rather—according to popular belief—it is there that he remains in a vaulted tomb awaiting the coming of Miroku, the Buddhist Messiah.

  It was to those same hills behind Futatabi which Kobo Daishi twice visited, that the graves of the old foreign cemetery were recently transferred. There in the front plot of the new cemetery visitors may see the tombstones of the English naval lieutenant and the American naval surgeon, the first foreigners to be buried in Kobe—on that sad Christmas Day of ninety years ago. The inscription on the tombstone of the American surgeon can still be plainly read but the engraving on the tombstone of the English lieutenant has almost weathered away and little but the name can now be seen.

  This place where once walked a Buddhist saint is a delightful spot, surrounded by wooded hills rich in historical associations. Close by is a picturesque temple in a setting of maple trees.

  It is there that the new Foreign Cemetery is located. The international spirit that pervades that lovely spot, the wooded hills, the temple grounds and the inscriptions on the old gravestones seem to breathe in all truth the Christmas message of nearly two thousand years ago—PEACE ON EARTH AND GOODWILL TOWARD MEN.

  HARA-KIRI

  IN

  KOBE

  I saw one... who went so resolutely... that I could not but much admire, never having seen the like in Christendome.

  Capt. Saris' Diary, 1613

  If one stands outside the Daimaru Department Store in Kobe, it is impossible to fail to note the scurrying people and an occasional sound like gunfire, from the backfiring of a motorcycle.

  Eighty-seven years ago at about that spot there was a scene of scurrying people and a sound of gunfire that echoed across the Settlement. As a consequence a very unfortunate man was ordered to die.

  On 4th February, 1868, less than two months after the port of Kobe had been opened, a party of soldiers of the Lord Bizen, Daimyo of Okayama, landed from junks at Hyogo en route to Osaka to join the Imperialist forces which were gathering against the Tokugawa clan. It was the Tokugawa government that had made terms with the foreigners, and had opened the gates of Japan which had been closed for nearly two hundred and fifty years. The Tokugawa clan had thus permitted the foreigners to enter Japan, and as that clan was now in the process of being overthrown, these men from Bizen were looking to the time when the foreigners also would be thrown out.