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AN OBJECT LESSON. 229
their presents. There were gifts
from the head of
the Tokugawa family the person whom the Americans
call
" The Emperor." By this phrase the
Americans did not mean the Mikado, but his lieutenant
in Yedo, the Tycoon.
Okuma, who easily read many of the labels in
English, had a quiet little laugh all to himself, but
it was wholly inward and not visible in his countenance,
as he thought of the Americans calling the
head of the bakufu " Emperor," just like the barbarians
who named him " Great Prince." When,
however, the Yedo officers were around he kept his
face down, and squatted or kneeled so low on the
ground as almost to scrape the tip of his nose, lest
he should be recognized by some of the officers or
interpreters. How he did envy one of the latter
whom he saw carrying away a copy of Webster's
Dictionary which he had received as a gift !
Most of the presents for " The Emperor," that is,
the Tycoon, were rifles, swords, or military equipments;
but there were also boxes of books, and
maps, dressing-cases, perfumery, telescopes, samples
of the measures, weights, and coins of the United
States, seeds, agricultural implements, various kinds
of machinery and inventions, clocks, stones, etc.,
with all the telegraph, railway, and daguerreotype
apparatus.
Each of the treaty commissioners and the secretaries
and interpreters were also well remembered.
The uses of each article were explained both by
verbal description and by pictures, and the little