THREE:"You are right," the Doctor responded, "there is a long stretch of mud, and it was that mud which partly led to the failure at the time of the first attack. The storming force was compelled to wade through it, and many of the men perished. The fire of the Chinese was more severe than had been expected, and the ships of the fleet were badly injured. But when the attack was made the following year, the muddy belt was much narrower, and the sailors passed through it very quickly, and were at the walls of the fort before the Chinese were ready for them."The opponents of the Mikado's government accuse it of acting in bad faith, but I do not see that the charge is just. As I understand the situation, the government acted honestly, and with good intent to expel the foreigner in case it should obtain power. But when the power was obtained, they found the foreigner could not be expelled so easily; he was here, and intended to remain, and the only thing the government could do was to make the best of it. The foreign nations who had treaties with Japan would not tear them up, and the government found that what it had intended at the time of the revolution could not be accomplished. Foreign intercourse went on, and the Japanese began to instruct themselves in Western ways. They sent their young men to America and other countries to be[Pg 100] educated. They hired teachers to take charge of schools in Japan, and in every way tried to turn the presence of the foreigner to their advantage. There is an old adage that what can't be cured must be endured, and Japan seems to have acted upon it. The foreigner was here as an evil, and they couldn't cure him out. So they set about finding the best way of enduring him.
