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Urago proved a less pleasant place to stay in not because its smells were any stronger than those of Saigo, but for other reasons which shall presently appear. More than one foreign man-of-war has touched at Saigo, and English and Russian officers of the navy have been seen in the streets.
Yet offences against the law are still surprisingly few, even in Saigo. When a serious offence is committed, the offender is not punished in Oki, but is sent to the great prison at Matsue, in Izumo. The Dozen islands, however, perfectly maintain their ancient reputation for irreproachable honesty.
I did not avail myself of the offer, as I make it a rule while travelling to escape trouble by keeping to a purely Japanese diet; but it was no small surprise to be offered in Saigo what is almost impossible to obtain in any other Japanese town of five thousand inhabitants. From a romantic point of view, however, this discovery was a disappointment.
They accordingly "have had to cast away every tradition, every habit, and every principle and mode of action with which even the youngest of them had to begin official life." The ranks of this noble body of statesmen and reformers are now gradually diminishing. Saigo and Gesho are no more. Kido and Iwakura have been borne to their graves. Okubo and Mori have fallen under the sword of fanatics.
Though Chiburishima has no kembutsu, her poor little village of Chiburi the same Chiburimura at which the Oki steamer always touches on her way to Saigo is the scene of perhaps the most interesting of all the traditions of the archipelago. Five hundred and sixty years ago, the exiled Emperor Go-Daigo managed to escape from the observation of his guards, and to flee from Nishinoshima to Chiburi.
Never, in any part of Western Japan, have I been made more comfortable than at Saigo. My friend and myself were the only guests at the hotel to which we had been recommended. The broad and lofty rooms of the upper floor which we occupied overlooked the main street on one side, and on the other commanded a beautiful mountain landscape beyond the mouth of the Yabigawa, which flowed by our garden.
Posterity agrees in thinking that he sought to exercise control rather than to inspire revolt. The province of Satsuma thus became a seed-plot of conservative influences, where "Saigo and his constantly augmenting band of samurai found a congenial environment."
No, it was Bushido, pure and simple, that urged us on for weal or woe. Open the biographies of the makers of Modern Japan of Sakuma, of Saigo, of Okubo, of Kido, not to mention the reminiscences of living men such as Ito, Okuma, Itagaki, etc.: and you will find that it was under the impetus of samuraihood that they thought and wrought. When Mr.
Before leaving Saigo, I experienced many other unexpected kindnesses from the same gentleman. Not long after, one of the teachers of the Saigo public school paid me a visit. He had heard of my interest in Oki, and brought with him two fine maps of the islands made by himself, a little book about Saigo, and, as a gift, a collection of Oki butterflies and insects which he had made.
On the other hand, those in favour of peace insisted that the country must not venture to engage in a foreign war during the era of radical transition. The discussion was carried to the Emperor's presence; the peace-party prevailed, and Saigo with three other Cabinet ministers resigned. One of the seceders, Eto Shimpei, had recourse to arms, but was speedily crushed.
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