Saigo Kichinosuke, as he was named until he was of full age, was born in Satsuma province in the year 1822. His father was a Samurai, of foot-soldier rank. It is clear, however, that the father possessed an accurate idea of the value of education and training, if only from the prominence which both his sons achieved in the service of their country. Kichinosuke was the elder of the two, his younger brother achieving the rank of Marquis, and figuring in the national annals with a lustre but little inferior to that of the popular hero himself. While yet young Kichinosuke was given the post of gardener to the prince of Satsuma. In days of old this was often a position of trust, for the individual occupying it necessarily came into close contact with his lord when it happened, as it did in nine cases out of ten, that the chieftain of a clan had a taste for horticulture. Trustworthy Samurai of rank were sometimes given the office of gardener for the sake of the opportunities thus afforded for direct communication, between the baron and his faithful retainers, free from the risk of surveillance by emissaries of the Shogun’s Government who under the old regime were to be found in every mansion. That Saigo held this post is a proof of his lord’s confidence in him. When twenty years old Kichinosuke went to Mito and there became a pupil of Fujita Toko—whose history is elsewhere in this volume briefly recorded—and under that profound scholar’s guidance studied Chinese literature so assiduously that Fujita always spoke of Saigo with pride as one of his best pupils. It was from Fujita that Saigo imbibed his rooted hostility to the Shogunate, Fujita being the confidential friend of the old prince of Mito, whose opposition to the Bakufu is always believed to have culminated in the assassination by his followers of the Regent, Ii Kamon-no-kami, at the Sakurada Gate of Yedo Castle, in March 1860. On separating after the lapse of some years from Fujita Toko, Saigo went to Kioto and there became the intimate friend of Gessho, the high priest of the famous Buddhist temple of Kiyomidzu, and during the eventful five years from 1854 to 1859 Saigo was resident either in Kioto or Osaka. It was when the Regent or “Gotairo” Ii-kamon-no-kami came into power in 1859 at Yedo, during the minority of the Shogun Iyemochi, that Saigo, dissatisfied with the course things were taking, and possessing definite views of his own, formed a party opposed to the Bakufu. In the same year, 1859, when he was about to return to Satsuma, his friend Gessho was selected by the Imperial Court to be the bearer of a despatch to the prince of Mito. Gessho, however, pleaded that the honour of being the imperial messenger should be bestowed on Saigo, as being far better qualified for the office, and his prayer was granted. Saigo could not succeed, however, in delivering the secret despatch, owing to the rigorous watch kept by the Mito