OLIPHANT.—NOTES ON JAPAN. 93 
inconvenient as a harbour, another shall be substituted for it, to be opened on the 
first of January, 1860. 
Tt will thus be seen that we have one port in Kinsin, Nagasaki ; three in Nipon, 
Hiogo, Kanagawa, and Nee-e-gata. In the remaining large Island of the Japanese 
group—viz., Yesso, we have secured Hakodadi. It was opened to foreign trade 
on the Ist of last July. Our ships of war have recently visited Hakodadi 
frequently. It is described as a beautiful spot, situated in a country resembling 
England in its climate, productions, and natural features. 
The limits of this paper will not, unfortunately, admit of my adverting, at any 
length, to the singular political and social institutions of this most remarkable 
people—otherwise, it might have been interesting to have described the spiritual 
Emperor passlng a sub-celestial existence at Miaco, reminded only of his 
humanity by twelve wives, who are not spiritual; and the temporal Emperor, 
confined within the massive walls of his handsome palace, little better than a 
State prisoner. We cannot now speculate upon the power and influence wielded 
by the Council of State, composed of five feudal nobles ; or discuss the share which 
‘an ancient and powerful aristocracy possess in the administration of public affairs, 
That most striking feature in the social government of Japan, which consists of an 
elaborate system of espionage, exercised alike upon prince and beggar, and 
retaining all witbin the thraldrom of its iron grasp, would be a fertile theme for a 
paper in itself; while the celebrated Hara Kiri, or happy despatch, already so 
familiar to all, that it is scarcely necessary to allude to it as the resource alike of 
the unsuccessful politician, the detected criminal, and the injured member of 
society. It may not, however, be so well known that the old practice of ripping 
open the abdomen has been extinguished in favour of a less disgusting method of 
immolation, by which the duty of terminating the existence of the victim falls 
not upon himself but upon his friend, who decapitates him in the presence of his 
family and relations. 
Still less can we now venture upon a discussion of the various creeds which obtain 
in Japan, of the old national religions of the Empire, known asthe Sinsyn religion or 
faith of the gods, or of the extent to which it has become modified by those more 
recently introduced dogmas of Bhuddism (now a faith widely diffused throughout 
the Empire,) or of the influence exercised upon both by the more Confucian 
tenets practised by those who follow Suitoo, or the way of the philosophers, 
Having, thus enumerated and briefly discussed, so far as our limited information 
will admit, the five ports of Japan recently opened by treaty to the commerce and 
enterprise of the West, it may not be uninteresting to glance at the probable 
nature and extent of that commerce which is likely to spring up at them. 
From the little we know of the internal resources of Japan, itis probable that 
we shali find a more profitable source of trade in its mineral than its vegetable 
productions. Unless we have been totally misinformed, these former are of vast 
extent and great value. 
We know that the principal profits of the early Portuguese settlers were 
derived from the export of gold and silver. So lucrative"!was it that Kainipfer 
remarks—“ It is believed that, had the Portuguese enjoyed the trade of Japan but 
twenty years longer, upon the same footing as they did for some time, much riches 
