SOUTHERNMOST JAPAN 171 



not sufficiently admire it; for whereas they had never seen any gun before in 

 that country, they could not comprehend what it might be, so that for want 

 of understanding the secret of the powder, they all concluded that of necessity 

 it must be some sorcery. 



The story goes on to tell how the nobleman took Zeimoto up behind 

 him on his horse and had criers declare through the town that there- 

 after he considered him as his kinsman, and that he should be treated 

 accordingly on pain of death. The lord treated Zeimoto very kindly, 

 and the latter, according to Pinto, presented his harquebuse to the lord, 

 who gave him in return 1,000 tcsls silver.^^ The lord took more 

 pleasure in shooting the gun than in anything else, and many of his 

 subjects set to work to learn to make firearms. Pinto says that when 

 he returned to Japan another time, which was in 1556, he was amazed 

 to find how the art of making guns had spread, and he says that on 

 expressing his amazement : 



" Certain merchants of good credit assured me that in the whole island of 

 Jappan there were above 300,000 harquebuses. ... So that by means of that 

 one, which Zeimoto presented to the Nautaquim in acknowledgment of the 

 honour and good offices that he had done him . . . the country was filled with 

 such abundance of them, . . . whereby one may perceive what the inclination 

 of this people is, and how much they are naturally addicted to the wars, 

 wherein they take more delight than any other nation that we know. 



The first finding of Japan by Europeans opened the way to the 

 coming of more merchants, and missionaries. It was not long after 

 that St. Francis Xavier came and converted large numbers of the 

 Japanese to Christianity and started this new religion, which in later 

 years gained such a firm rooting and developed among the Japanese 

 some of the bravest Christian martyrs known to history. During fol- 

 lowing centuries a very important trade continued between Japan and 

 the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch until the country was opened to 

 the world by America in 1854. 



We found the people in many of the out-of-the-way parts of Japan 

 not much altered, it would seem, from what they were centuries ago, 

 and just as much filled with curiosity as they were then at the coming 

 of " red-haired barbarians with green eyes." To cite just one instance 

 — one day an old man who had never seen a foreigner before sat for 

 half an hour outside our door, which happened to be a little open, and 

 watched us while we were eating. I heard later that his comment 

 was — " they have beautiful complexions but I do not like their hair," 

 A light complexion is always considered an element of beauty, and for 

 this reason a large proportion of the girls use powder, although their 

 faces are in general whiter and rosier naturally than the men's. Black 

 hair is, of course, an element of beauty, and sandy hair such as ours is 

 not, since black is practically the only color laiown among themselves; 



" Compare this with the Japanese account of the transaction. 



