his fellow-clansman and life-long friend. The admiral was indeed related by marriage to the dead hero, and having carefully washed the head Kawamura carried it in his own hands to his home, there to be guarded until such time as the body could be decently interred. However misguided may have been his actions in the opinion of some of his compatriots, Saigo was the idol of the samurai, and almost equally so of the nation at large. It was many years before millions of his countrymen were willing to credit the reports of his death. When at last they were compelled to admit it they insisted that he had taken up his abode in the planet Mars. A man of striking personality,—he stood over six feet high,—he was distinguished by the extreme simplicity of his tastes, his utter repugnance to display of any sort, his bravery and contempt of danger, his complete modesty and unselfishness, evinced in a thousand ways. His innate kindliness and generosity of heart, concealed beneath a certain taciturnity which is not infrequent among Satsuma people in general, gained for him the utmost respect and esteem and won the affections of soldiers of all ranks to a man. When the struggle was at its height in the summer of 1877 a prominent journal thus eulogised him:— “Though Saigo Takamori is the public enemy of the State,—although his crime, according to the laws of Meiji, is absolutely unpardonable,—he is still a great man. Was it not he who overturned the despotic Bakufu, and restored the ancient imperial authority? Did he not do this with infinite exertion and the most profound indifference to the perils which beset his person?” It is safe to say that up to the time of the revolt of the clan in 1877 he was the most popular of the nation’s heroes. The Emperor gave one more proof of his extreme magnanimity of mind when he pardoned Saigo’s transgression and ordered a statue to be erected to his memory in Uyeno Park in Tokio. Some years afterwards his Majesty conferred the title of Marquis on Takamori’s eldest son, in recognition of the invaluable support that the father had rendered to the State, in the days prior to Satsuma’s outbreak. Every line of the record of his error has been expunged by his sovereign’s command, and naught remains but the memory of splendid services given to his country with whole-souled devotion and self-sacrifice. He died as became a true and loyal samurai of his race,—died as he had hoped to die, “... And not disgrace— Its ancient chivalry.” XIII FIELD-MARSHAL MARQUIS YAMAGATA