SOUTHERNMOST JAPAN 173 



We went to sleep on short mattresses on the floor, under covers of 

 silk, and so passed one of the last of our nights in Tanegashima. Be- 

 fore leaving this southern end of the island the next day I climbed a 

 high hill and saw the great blue mass of the island Yakushima that 

 rises under a dense cover of old forests over six thousand feet out of the 

 sea not far away. To this island I sailed a few days later, while my 

 brother left me to go back to the north. 



It was just at the time when the long expected Eussian fleet was 

 gradually crawling toward Japan, and the whole country, ignorant of 

 the fleet's whereabouts and of the route that it might take, and not 

 knowing at what moment it might strike, was calmly and confidently 

 awaiting its arrival. On several different days we had heard occasional 

 distant rumblings that did not sound at all like thunder and did not 

 approach nearer. We thought to ourselves, could that be distant 

 cannonading? But although the noise was probably due to distant 

 thunder storms it added something of awe and doubt to the suspense. 

 Finally the news came, and the intoxicating, unbelievable story of 

 wholesale success was quietly received and at once believed by the 

 people as if it were only what had been expected. A couple of days 

 after the great victory, as I was sailing across the straits to Yaku Island, 

 I saw a Japanese war vessel swooping down the coast of southern 

 Kiushiu, probably in search of any Eussian ship that might possibly 

 have escaped. The war, now almost ended, which had been carried on 

 with such assured skill by the Japanese, gave an added significance to 

 the first introduction of firearms and a prophetic truth to the words of 

 Mendez Pinto at the end of the passage quoted above, and to the foiiow- 

 words with which the priest Monshi summed up his " Teppoki " : 



After this, throughout the eight provinces, and even in the country dis- 

 tricts, every one obtained guns and practised. ... In the first place Tokiaki 

 got two guns from ihe foreigners and learned their use. One shot shook all. 

 Japan. 



