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LIKE THE BREATH OF A CLAM. 343
the foreign settlement of Yokohama, he took care
to be well armed with the writing stamped with the
government seal, as well as with his passport, for
he wanted to see everything possible without let or
hindrance by intermeddling yakunin, or subordinate
officers. He found that while the merchant and
trader had from the first settled at Yokohama, yet
at Kanagawa several American families had located
themselves. They professed to be physicians, teach-
How-
ers, or, as they called themselves, missionaries.
ever, by the threatening state of affairs in Japan,
and by the orders of the Yedo government, even
they had been compelled to live in Yokohama. The
patriotic assassins came even within the settlement,
arid in their zeal murdered two Dutch sea-captains
;
while only a few miles away two British officers and
a gentleman on horseback had been cut down by
the swiftly drawn swords of men whose pride and
hatred made them willing murderers in the name of
patriotism. A wholesome lesson had been taught
the assassins, when a samurai who had killed an
English officer was not allowed to commit honorable
hara-kiri, but was beheaded as a criminal in the
place for the execution of common criminals.
Europeans accustomed to honorable battle could
not understand how Japanese, professing to be gentlemen,
or samurai, with high notions of honor, could
be such cowards as to attack unarmed civilians or
to cut down men by striking from behind. Americans
were reminded of
Indian warfare, in which savages
will not face rifles if they can help it, but