Japan and the Japanese

204 JAPAN. A. D. 1020170".
other presents he brought a Casuar, a strange bird of the ostrich
kind, from Bunda, but the officers at Nagasaki would not suffer it
to be forwarded. During this visit there happened a terrible fire
at Jedo, by which two thirds of that city were laid in ruins. Some
violent disputes having arisen, and the Japanese having gone so lar
as to take away the rudders of the Dutch ships, Waganaar went
on a second embassy to Jedo, in 1059.*
The establishment of the French East India Company by Colbert,
led to some projects for a French trade with Japan, especially as
Caron in some disgust had quitted the Dutch service, and enlisted
into that of France. A letter from Louis XIV. to the emperor
of Japan, dated in 16GG, was prepared, and instructions for Caron,
who was to be the bearer of it ; but the project does not appear to
have been prosecuted.! [See Appendix, Note I.]
In 1673, the English East India Company made an attempt at
* The journals of these embassies of Waganaar, Frisius and others, gener-
ally pretty dry documents, with extracts from Caron, furnished the basis for
the Memorable Embassies of t lie Dutch to the Emperors of Japan, a splendid
folio with more than a hundred copper plates, published at Amsterdam
in 1669, purporting to be compiled by Arnold Montanus, of which an English
translation, made by Ogilvy, witli the same cuts, appeared the next year at
London, under the title of Mlas Jtiponensis, and a French translation, with
some additions and alterations, ten years later at Amsterdam.
The materials are thrown together in the most careless and disorderly man-
ner, and are eked out by drawing largely upon the letters of the Jesuit
missionaries. The cuts, whence most of the current prints representing Jap-
anese objects are derived, are destitute of any authenticity. Those repre-
senting Japanese idols and temples evidently were based on the descriptions
of Froez, whose accounts do not seem quite to agree in all respects with the
observations of more recent travellers.
The dedication of Ogilvy's translation outdoes anything Japanese in the
way of prostration, nor can the language of it hardly be called English. It is
as fellows : " To the supreme, most high and mighty prince, Charles II., by
the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, king, defender of
the faith, &c. These strange and novel relations concerning the ancient and
present state of the so populous and wealthy empire of Japan, being a book
of wonders, dedicated with all humility, lies prostrate at the sacred feet of
your most serene majesty, by the humblest of your servants, and most loyal
subject, John Ogilvy."
t This letter, with the instructions and a memoir of Caron's on the subject,
may bo found in Voyages au JVord, torn. iv. Caron, who spent several yearg
in the French, service in the East Indies, perished by shipwreck near Lisbon,