did. At the age of nineteen and a half a boy is still a boy, but I ought

to have manifested more respect for my elders.

Early in February we received news that the legation buildings in Gotenyama had been destroyed by fire on the night of the 1st. Many years afterwards I learnt on the best possible authority that the incendiaries were chiefly Chôshiû men belonging to the anti-foreign party; three at least afterwards rose to high position in the state. These were Count Itô, Minister President of State (1886); Count Inouyé Kaoru; who the third was I forget. It need scarcely be said that they long ago abandoned their views of the necessity of putting an end to the intercourse of their country with the outside world, and they are now the leaders of the movement in favour of the introduction into Japan of whatever western institutions are adapted to the wants and wishes of the people.

Willis and I were now living together in a wing of the legation house at No. 20 on the Bund, and a young Japanese _samurai_ named Kobayashi Kotarô messed with us. He had been placed under Willis' charge by the Japanese Government in order to acquire the English language, and was a nice boy, though perhaps not endowed with more than average abilities. He disappeared to his home about the time that the ultimatum of the British Government was presented to the Council of the Tycoon in the spring of 1863, and we never heard of him again. I had the teacher Takaoka Kanamé now all to myself, and was beginning to read Japanese documents. Across the hills south of the settlement lived a priest who knew something of the Sanskrit alphabet as used in Japan, and I used to go once or twice a week to him for instruction, but these studies were interrupted by the rumours of war that began soon to prevail; and the lessons from the American missionary, Mr. Brown, also came to an end, as I was now able to get on alone.