Japan and the Japanese

D.TEFF'S JOURNEY TO JEDO. 451
The ambassador did not depart without bitter reproaches against
Doeff, whom he charged as the author of his miscarriage. lie ar-
rived at Okhotsk in May, 1^05, afterwards passed over to Sitka, on
the American coast, and the next year, having returned again to
Okhotsk, despatched two small llussian vesseb to make reprisals on
the Japanese. They landed on the coast of Sagaloen, in the years
1806 and 1807, plundered a Japanese settlement, loaded their
vessels with the booty, carried off several Kurile and two Japanese
prisoners, and left behind written notifications, in llussian and
French, that this had been done in revenge for the slights put upon
Resanoff.
In 1805 and 1806, Klaproth, the learned Orientalist, passed
some months at Irkutsk, as secretary to a llussian embassy to
China. He found the Japanese professorship,
established there by
Catherine II., filled by a Japanese, who had embraced the Greek
religion, and, from him and the books which he furnished, Klaproth
acquired such knowledge as he had of the Japanese tongue.
In the spring of 1806, Doeff made his first journey to Jedo. In
the arrangements of the journey and the audience, there seems to
to have been no change since the time of Thuuberg. While he was
at Jedo a tremendous fire broke out. It began, at a distance from
his lodgings,
at ten in the morning. At one the Dutch took the
alarm, and began to pack. At three
"
they fled. On issuing into
the street," says Doeff, " we saw everything in flames. There was
great danger in endeavoring to escape before the wind, in the same
direction taken by the fire. We, therefore, took a slanting direction,
through a street already burning, and thus succeeded in reaching
an open field. It was studded with the standards of princes, whose
dwellings had been destroyed, and whose wives and children had
fled thither for refuge. We followed their example, and marked
out a spot with our Dutch flags. We had now a full view of the
fire, and never did I see anything so terrific. The terrors of this
ocean of flame were enhanced by the heart-rending cries of the
fugitive women and children." The fire raged till noon the next
day, when it was extinguished by a fall of rain.' The Dutch
* Golownin was informed, during his ciptivitj- at Matsmai, that it is pan
of the duty of the Japanese soldiers to assist in extinguishing fires, for which
purpose they are provided with a fireman's dress of \arnished leather. T