FORE:As I passed up the road through the midst of our nearly tentless camp I met a leather-curtained spring-wagon to which were attached a pair of little striped-legged mules driven by an old negro. Behind him, among the curtains, sat a lady and her black maid. The mistress was of strikingly graceful figure, in a most tasteful gown and broad Leghorn hat. Her small hands were daintily gloved. The mules stopped, and through her light veil I saw that she was handsome. Her eyes, full of thought, were blue, and yet were so spirited they might as well have been black, as her hair was. She, or fate for her, had crowded thirty years of life into twenty-five of time."And what was the edict?"
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FORE:"But the grooms, or 'bettos,' as the Japanese call them, are not the only ones who indulge in tattooing. You will see many of the 'sendos,' or boat-coolies, thus marked, but in a less degree than the bettos. Perhaps it is because the grooms are obliged to run so much, and consequently wish to lay aside all garments. As they must wear something, they have their skins decorated in this way, and thus have a suit of clothing always about them.As nearly as can be ascertained the first European who landed on Japanese[Pg 307] soil was Mendez Pinto, a Portuguese who combined the occupations of merchant and pirate in such intimate relations that it was not always easy for him to determine where the one ended and the other began. He has been greatly slandered, and his name has an ignoble place in history, as that of a champion liar. The fact is, that the stories he told on his return to Europe, and which caused him to be called "The Mendacious," were substantially correctquite as much so as those of Marco Polo, and far more than the narrations of Sir John Mandeville. Pinto came with two companions to the island of Tanegashima in 1542, and, as might be expected, they were great curiosities. Even more curious were the fire-arms they carried; and they were invited to visit the Daimio of Bungo, and bring their strange weapons with them. They did so, and taught the natives how to make guns and powder, which soon became generally used throughout Japan. To this day fire-arms are frequently called "Tanegashima," after the island where Pinto landed with the first of these weapons. Christianity followed closely on the track of the musket. The adventurers returned with a profit of twelve hundred per cent. on their cargo. Their success stimulated others, and in 1549 two Portuguese missionaries, one of them being Francis Xavier, landed in Japan, and began the work of converting the heathen. Xavier's first labors were in Satsuma, and he afterwards went to Kioto and other cities. Personally he never accomplished much, as he could not speak the language fluently, and he remained in the country only a few years. But he did a great deal to inspire others; numbers of missionaries flocked to Japan, and it is said that thirty years after Xavier landed on the soil there were two hundred churches, and a hundred and fifty thousand native Christians. At the time of the highest success of the missionaries it is estimated that there were not less than half a million professing Christians in Japan, and perhaps another hundred thousand who were nominally so, though their faith was not regarded as[Pg 308] more than "skin deep." Among the adherents of the new religion there were several Daimios, and a great number of persons occupying high social and official positions. Some of the Daimios were so zealous that they ordered their people to turn Christians whether they wished it or not; and one of them gave his subjects the option of being baptized or leaving the country within twenty-four hours.
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