devastation, a calamity comparable only,--by reason of the misery and destruction which it wrought,--to an earthquake, a tidal-wave, a volcanic eruption. [*Francisco Cassola, Pedro Marquez, and Giuseppe Chiara. Two of these--probably under compulsion--married Japanese women. For their after-history, see a paper by Satow in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. VI, Part I.] [329] The policy of isolation,--of shutting off Japan from the rest of the world,--as adopted by Hidetada and maintained by his successors, sufficiently indicates the fear that religious intrigues had inspired. Not only were all foreigners, excepting the Dutch traders, expelled from the country; all half-breed children of Portuguese or Spanish blood were also expatriated, Japanese families being forbidden to adopt or conceal any of them, under penalties to be visited upon all the members of the household disobeying. In 1636 two hundred and eighty-seven half-breed children were shipped to Macao. It is possible that the capacity of half-breed children to act as interpreters was particularly dreaded; but there can be little doubt that, at the time when this ordinance was issued, race-hatred had been fully aroused by religious antagonism. After the Shimabara episode all Western foreigners, without exception, were regarded with unconcealed distrust.* [*The Chinese traders, however, were allowed much more liberty than the Dutch.] The Portuguese and Spanish traders were replaced by the Dutch (the English factory having been closed some years previously); but even in the case of these, extraordinary precautions were taken. They were compelled to abandon their good quarters at Hirado, and transfer their factory to Deshima,--a tiny island only six hundred feet long, by two hundred and forty feet wide. There they were kept under constant guard, like prisoners; they were not [330] permitted to go among the people; no man could visit them without permission, and no woman, except a prostitute, was allowed to enter their reservation under any circumstances. But they had a monopoly of the trade of the country; and Dutch patience endured these conditions, for the profit's sake, during more than two hundred years. Other commerce with foreign countries than that maintained by the Dutch factory, and by the Chinese, was entirely suppressed. For any Japanese to leave Japan was a capital offence; and any one who might succeed in leaving the country by stealth, was to be put to death upon his return. The purpose of this law was to prevent Japanese, sent abroad by the Jesuits for missionary training, from returning to Japan in the disguise of laymen. It was forbidden also to construct ships capable of long voyages; and all ships exceeding a dimension fixed by the government were broken up, Lookouts were established along the coast to watch for strange vessels; and any European ships entering a Japanese port, excepting