DASTARDLY ATTACKS 
243 
the various papers on the rights and wrongs of the 
case. Efforts were made to get the British and 
Japanese Governments to take the matter up on 
behalf of the victims, but the usual 44 political 
reasons ” prevented. Thus ended another bad 
season. 
The year 1889 proved another black year with 
troubles all round. I had the misfortune to make 
the acquaintance of a man who was one of Nature’s 
44 bad eggs.” He brought a letter of introduction 
from a friend of mine in China, where he had been 
in command of steamers engaged in the coast trade. 
He was a man of good address and appearance, 
musical, well educated, and spoke English, French, 
and Italian. He was of Italian stock, his people 
having settled in England, where he had two brothers, 
one a doctor, the other a solicitor. When he came 
to see me, he said he would much like to take a trip 
north, and, as I wanted a shipkeeper, I offered him 
the billet. Being a seaman by profession and a 
master mariner, and, so far as I could then judge, 
a reasonable and proper sort of man, I told him, out 
of courtesy, he might as well sign on the ship’s 
articles as master instead of myself; but it had to be 
understood that I should be in full charge, as he knew 
nothing of hunting, or of the coasts, or the conditions 
of things in the north. This being all arranged, 
though only verbally, preparations were made for 
fitting out. 
The Japanese authorities now issued regulations 
and instructions which made it practically impossible 
for Japanese to ship on board any hunting-vessels 
but their own. Although this was clearly a viola¬ 
tion of foreigners’ treaty rights, the fighting of the 
