INTRODUCTION. 



upon the shore-line of the Yellow sea : " There is a great island to the east." Years rolled on ; 

 Marco Polo's written story and maps had found their way to Genoa, and probably had been 

 forgotten. At length, in the sixteenth century, they fell into the hands of a man who did not 

 cast them idly by; that man was Christopher Columbus, whose strong mind was then travelling 

 to the overruling conviction of his lite that there must be, to the westward of Europe, great 

 bodies of land at that time utterly unknown. It was Marco Polo's map, and his statements 

 concerning Zipangu particularly, which confirmed his conjectures ; and when he sailed, it was 

 Zipangu, or, as the Italian manuscript of Marco Polo had it, Cipango, on which he hoped and 

 expected to find the termination of his voyage. Accordingly, (as we know,) when he landed 

 on Cuba he believed that he had reached the goal of his long cherished hopes. He knew not 

 that a continent barred his way between Europe and Zipangu;. nor that, still further westward, 

 beyond that continent a mighty ocean rolled its waters^ which must be traversed before Zipangu 

 could be reached. 



But though not destined himself to find and open Japan to Christendom, it has so hajipened, 

 in the order of Providence, that on the continent which he discovered, and which barred his 

 way to the land he sought, has grown up a nation which has performed a part of his contem- 

 plated work, and fulfilled a portion, at least, of the plan which lured him westward ; a nation 

 which, if it did not discover Zipangu, has, we trust, been the instrument of bringing it into full 

 and free communication with the rest of the world ; a nation which has, as it were, taken the 

 end of the thread which, on the shores of America, broke in the hands of Columbus, and fastening 

 it again to the ball of destiny, has rolled it onward until, as it has unwound itself, it has led 

 the native and civilized inhabitants of the land discovered by the great Genoese to plant their 

 feet on the far distant region of his search, and thus fulfil his wish to bring Zipangu within 

 the influence of European civilization. 



It is the story of the American entrance into Japan that we propose to relate ; and it is 

 hoped it will aid in the better understanding of the narrative, as well as show what additions, if 

 any, have been made to our previous knowledge, briefly to present^ in a rapid sketch, the out- 

 lines of such information as the world possessed before the American expedition left our shores. 

 On this work we now enter. 



SECTION I. 



NAME, EXTENT, AND GEOGRAPHY. 



There can be no doubt that Japan was unknown to the Greeks and Eomans, and that it 

 was first brought to the knowledge of the European world by the celebrated traveller, Marco 

 Polo. His family was Venetian, and devoted to commercial pursuits. In the year 1275, at 

 the age of eighteen, he accompanied his fathei' and uncle into Asia on mercantile business ; and 

 there, mastering the languages of Tartary, on the return of his relatives to Europe, he remained, 

 and entered into the service of Kublai Khan, the then reigning monarch. In this situation he 

 continued for seventeen years. Possessed of a good mind, he was a close observer of what he 

 saw around him, and rendered the most important services, both military and diplomatic, to the 



