The Literature, History, and Civilization of the Japanese [pp. 306-329]

326 THE LITERATURE, HISTORY AND CIVILIZATION [April~
It was in this language that the demand of the Amencan~
to be admitted to several ports of the empire was communicated to the sovereign. The Mikado, who understands more
or less of what is addressed to him, slowly shook his head
from east to west. Immediately the hierogrammatists wrote
at the bottom of the petition the simple word, be'kara~ou, i. e.,
"impossible," from which it was understood that his holiness
did not consent to the admission of foreigners to his ports.
This is the way that business is done in Japan.
The temporal emperors, or Tycoons, even in our days, content themselves with consulting the Mikado, after a fashion,
in extraordinary cases, reserving the power of interpreting
the response of the pontiff according to their own pleasure,
or even of consigning it to the waste paper of the ministry
when that seems preferable. This was the case at the time
of the embassy of Commodore Perry to Japan, and at the
conclusion of the different treaties with European powers,
which treaties were the natural consequence of the concessions obtained by the memorable American expedition to
Jeddo.
x.
The establishment of Europeans in Japan must in any case
bave at first resulted in shaking the political structure
so skilfully reared by the Japanese. The feudal princes,
who, by reason of this policy saw their power daily dim inishing and reduced to a kind of disguised servitude, could
not fail to profit by so flagrant a violation of law as the admission of foreigners to their ports, by striving to re-conquer
their old independence. For this there was but one method,
to restore, or feign to restore, the authority of the Mikados.
This is what actuaJly occurred; and then there was open war
in Japan betwe~n the~Tycoon, or temporal emperor, and the
Daimios, or feudal princes, who are subject according to the
constitution of the empire, only to the sacred person of the
sovereign pontiff.
The temporal emperor, placed suddenly in the face of a
formidable rebellion on the one hand, for several of the
Daimios conuted no less than thirty thousand men armed in