376 RfeUMJ^. 



tion with the world, and notably with China, from 

 whence junks both went and came ; became very much 

 perturbed, and for some time he brooded over the pro- 

 bability — the certainty, in his mind — of the corruption 

 of his people, but without seeing his way through the 

 difficulty. At last he hit upon a plan. It was easy, 

 he said, to stop the foreigner from coming in, but not 

 to prevent his own people from going out, and in this 

 way learning new ideas, and becoming discontented ; 

 and now, after nights made sleepless by conning over 

 how so much evil to his people could be prevented, he 

 had come to the conclusion there was only one way of 

 averting it, and that was by constructing a certain kind 

 of vessel which would answer to coast along their own 

 shores, but would be utterly unfit to launch out into the 

 open sea in. This decree was carried out to the letter, 

 and to the present day this great Emperor's model of a 

 junk may be seen in every craft that sails over Japanese 

 waters, — an unwieldy mass, almost as high out of the 

 water at the stern as they are long, with a single huge 

 sail and one mast, — an article in no way adapted for 

 seafaring purposes. Certainly they get along before the 

 wind, so would a hay-stack, if it happened to find itself 

 on the water; but as to beating to windward or 

 weathering a gale, two points usually considered of 



