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THE LIFE OF A ftONIN. 191
I have no doubt that the cowards at Yedo will truckle
with the American barbarians, and make a treaty with them
and allow them to trade instead of driving them off. We
are well able to defy them. When was the sword of Japan
unable to cope with enemies? I predict that, if a treaty is
made, thousands of samurai will become ronin, and the cry
of "Drive out the barbarians I
" will be raised all over the
country.
On my journey here, almost as soon as my foot touched
the East Sea Road I was so fortunate as to meet a samurai
who was journeying eastward. I found he was no less
than Ban Saburo, a relative of the great historian whose
books we are all reading. I was overjoyed at the honor of
being allowed to travel with him. We had a delightful
time in comparing notes. He is full of hatred to Tokugawa
and the counterfeit government at Yedo, and is on fire with
reverence to the Mikado.
One adventure I must tell you about, to show that opportunities
for gratifying our hatred of Tokugawa and of honoring
wanting. We passed a Buddhist
temple a day or two ago in which was a beautifully carved
wooden statue of Ashikaga the Third, who lived, you remember,
nearly five hundred years ago, and accepted the
hateful title of "king" from China, thus insulting our
Mikado. Ban, happening to see it, and finding no one near,
drew his sword and sliced the face of the wooden image,
leaving only an oval of whitish pine instead of a visage.
He then spat upon the wooden face and pitched it into a
hole near by.
Yesterday we walked up the mountain and visited Kuno
temple; there we were closely watched, for one of the
priests overheard Ban imprudently say
:
" Ah, nest of robbers! Look at all this splendor and extravagance!
The Tokugawas press out the fat and blood
of the provinces to build such palaces as these."
On coming out he saw at some distance from the temple
a stone lantern with the golden trefoil- of asaruin leaves