Moreover, in both Scotland and Japan, it was the bayonet against the sword. The men of mediæval mind in both countries wore and wielded blades and looked upon the use of firearms as something mean and cowardly. Believing, to the last, in the rush against uniformed men in ranks and in slashing with two-handed sword strokes (the Japanese swordsmen using a mat shield, where the Highlander employed a target), both Scot and Nipponese met failure against the triangular stabbing tools that ended feudalism. In Tokio, the bayonet monument on Kudan Hill tells a story. Here, history is told in steel. What did more than anything else to open the Highlands and break up the very idea of a “hermit nation” was a system of roads which was carried out mainly during the sixteen years between 1726 and 1742, by the British field marshal, George Wade. Though born in Ireland (whence also came the great soldier and diplomatist, Wade, of China), he knew well the Gaels of both the island and the mainland. He spent two years studying the problems of the Highlands, economic and social. He had had long service with the army in the Belgic Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the Mediterranean Islands. During the Jacobite outbreak of 1715, he acted effectively as military governor. Having later again made a thorough study of the Highlands and their inhabitants, he was made commander-in-chief, in order to give effect to his own recommendations. He cut roads through the most important strategic places and lines of country. In the course of this engineering work he superintended the construction of no fewer than forty stone bridges. It is this road-making which constitutes his chief title to fame, as the old distich intimates:-- “Had you seen these roads before they were made, You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.” In a word, he made possible the pacification of the Highlands, by a system of hard-faced or “metalled” roads. Dr. Johnson, who saw the results of Wade’s peaceful campaign, when the work was fresh and the results novel, is unstinted in praise of Wade. In fact, it is quite probable that, except for these new highways, the great man’s “Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland,” in 1773, would not, perhaps could not, have been taken.