history of japan - Library

handed weapon, pointed and sharp as a razor, the other,
short like a Roman sword and religiously kept in the same
serviceable state --- both as dangerous and deadly
weapons as man can well possess. Often drunk and always
insolent, the samurai is the terror of all the unarmed
population and street dogs, and as a general rule, offensive
in gesture and speech to foreigners." Sir Rutherford may
well be excused for not having taken a more roseate view
of the knighthood of Japan. Twice his Legation was
attacked at night by bands of samurai with the object of
murdering all its inmates, though he was himself not in
Japan on the second occasion, and he never stirred
outside the Legation boundaries without justifiably feeling
that he was incurring a very present risk of assassination, a
risk shared by all his fellow Europeans, which culminated in
the death of many by the terrible swords he has described.-
--J. H. L.
[1] Quoted in the next chapter, vide p. 240.