FURTHER MEANS OF INTERCOURSE. 511 



succeeded in doing, viz., to peacefully wrest the country from its 

 seclusion and bring it into friendly intercourse with the great sea- 

 faring powers. 



At the time of the first landing of Mendez Pinto and his com- 

 panions, in 1542, nothing excited the attention and amazement of 

 the Japanese like the long firelocks which the explorers carried with 

 them, and they soon succeeded in making them, and gunpowder 

 also. So it was now. Commodore Perry impressed them much 

 more by setting up a little telegraph line and a miniature railroad 

 than by his stately squadron. These things aroused the greatest 

 interest, and the desire to become possessed of them as a means 

 of intercourse. It is no wonder then that, after the opening of 

 commerce with Christian nations, and the overthrow of the Shogu- 

 nate, the building of steamboats and the establishment of telegraph 

 lines and railroads became the first care of the new government 

 under the Mikado. For the most influential adherents of the latter 

 and protectors of his old rights against the Shogunate, had, even 

 before the decisive battles of 1868 (see vol. i. p. 357), laid aside 

 their prejudice against the incoming barbarians, and recognised 

 that only by accepting and carrying on all the newly introduced 

 -improvements on the new basis established by the Bakufu (Yeddo 

 Government) could Japan become strong again and steadily de- 

 velop. But it was not until the year 1870 that this new govern- 

 ment, after overcoming the first great difficulties of the interior 

 organization, entered on the most varied departments of business, 

 and especially of open commerce, with a spirit of enterprise and 

 reform, which to many of the lookers on seemed going too far, and 

 awakened many fears as to the outcome. Fortunately, these fears 

 have not been fulfilled. To-day, whoever glances without preju- 

 dice over what has been accomplished in the commercial life of 

 Japan on land and water since that time, cannot withhold his 

 admiration of the men who stood at the head of these enterprises. 

 In other departments, especially in that of education, the reforms 

 and their achievements have been no less important. 



The establishment of an arsenal, and the erection of lighthouses 

 and many other institutions for promoting navigation, went hand 

 in hand with the foundation of the navy, begun by the Shogunate. 

 The arsenal at Yokosuka, south of Yokohama, was soon developed 

 into a model institution and school for Japanese machinists under 

 the long-continued careful direction of the Frenchman Verni and 

 his associates. The Englishman Brunton directed the erection of 

 lighthouses and other protective arrangements for navigation, so 

 that fifteen years ago the most important or dangerous points along 

 the coast had been provided with good signals, and the danger of 

 commerce in Japanese waters greatly diminished. Japanese war- 

 ships have undertaken many soundings, harbour measurements, 

 and other labours, whose results have been made permanent 

 in valuable charts, so that in this respect also the Hi-no-maru, 



