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PREFACE.
THIS story owes its origin to the suggestion of a publish-
ing friend who wanted the young people of America to
know how the wonderful New Japan flowered out of the
roots of the Old. Further, he wished the events of the last
twenty years told in the form of a sfory, and from an
inside point of view.
Now it makes a great derJ oi difference, whe:i you are
trying to make out the design in a stained-glass window,
whether you are looking at it from the street, or within
from the aisle or chancel. So, for a foreigner to know
Japan, it is better to get inside of the country and tell the
story of what he sees, than to look from without with alien
eye.
How I came to go to Japan, to live in Ftikui during 1871,
the last year of feudalism, and in Tokyo during
the three
formative years of 1872, 1873, and 1?74, is told in the
preface to "The Mikado's Empire," and need not be
repeated here. I became acquainted with hundreds of
Japanese lads and men, mostly samurai. Matsudaira, the
daimio of Echizen, was my stedfast friend. Many others
whose names are veiled in the story were neighbors,
companions, or pupils.
It was shortly after my arrival in Boston in 1886, to