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Up to this time there had been no fighting or any attempt to effect a lodgment on the mainland. But the expedition was now approaching the narrow westerly entrance to the present Osaka Bay, where an army might be encountered at any moment. The boats therefore sailed in line ahead, "the prow of each ship touching the stern of the other."
Here we have a nation brimful of intelligence, quick of apprehension, with a genius for selecting from the polity and procedure of other States exactly those features best fitted to promote prosperity and efficiency and an unmatched power for assimilating and reproducing them in the form suitable to its own tradition of development, following the Western Powers along the crooked path of their early dealings with industrialism and allowing the very conditions which stunted and degraded the Lancashire cotton operative of the 'thirties to be created in the mills of Osaka.
Thus when Kwanno Chqkuyo established a place of education in Yedo, and Nakai Seishi did the same in Osaka, liberal grants of land were made by the Bakufu to both men. Another step taken by the shogun was to institute a search for old books throughout the country, and to collect manuscripts which had been kept in various families for generations.
The Shin sect of the Hongwanji, with headquarters at Osaka, was scarcely less powerful; and its monastery, occupying the site of the present Osaka castle, was one of the strongest fortresses in the country. Nobunaga waited several years, merely to prepare for the attack.
It was altogether a novel experience. The next morning, however, the rain was coming down in torrents, and there was no possibility of our taking a steamer for a trip of several hours to the sacred island of Miyajima, so we reluctantly boarded the morning train for Osaka, arriving there late in the afternoon.
"This Zempachi is heartless and cruel, and if you go to his house will assuredly kill you; take, therefore, these fifty riyos, and fly to Osaka or Kiôto, where you may safely set up in business."
We learned from these people that they had sailed from the harbour of Osaka, in Japan, bound for another seaport, but were overtaken by a storm, in which they lost the helm and mast.
One evening, when the latter was on guard at the office of his chief, the Governor of Osaka, Kashiku sent word privately to Hichirobei, summoning him to go to her house, as the coast would be clear.
With the best system of welfare work in the empire, the Kanegafuchi Company keeps its laborers two and a half to three years, but in a mill in Osaka of the better sort, employing 2500 hands, I was told that only 20 per cent, had been at work as long as three years.
He is a great trouble, and may even become a danger. Besides, the house of Fujinami has few children. Where there are no sons even daughters are welcome. If we had this Asa, we could marry her to some influential person. She is very beautiful, she is rich, and she speaks foreign languages. There would be no difficulty. Now, as to the present, how about this Osaka business?"
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