There is a little story still current in Japan relative to the time of Saigo’s departure from Mito, after a stay of some years’ duration there under Fujita’s tuition. The master had bidden a number of his friends to a supper in Saigo’s honour, and in accord with ancient custom Fujita offered his _sakazuki_ (wine-cup) to his pupil in token of friendship, but Saigo, to Fujita’s surprise, at first begged to be excused. When rallied on his excessive caution Saigo explained that he went in fear lest under the influence of wine he might be guilty of acting imprudently, but Fujita would not accept the plea. “A man who aims at distinction as a samurai must never refuse his master’s invitation to take wine with him,” declared Fujita,—meaning, apparently, that a soldier must place himself unreservedly in the hands of his chief,—and Saigo thereupon took the risk, as he deemed it, on that occasion, and drank several cupfuls of _Sake_. Fujita was pleased with his pupil’s spirit, and often said of him afterwards that whatever Saigo might undertake he would assuredly succeed in, as he could accommodate himself to circumstances. Fujita had many other students of classical literature staying with him at Mito at various times, it being a period when not only was there the highest appreciation of Chinese literary composition, but things Chinese in general had a vogue in Japan which approximated to that which in later years was developed in respect of things European. There was, moreover, a growing disposition among the samurai to apply themselves to the study of such arts and sciences as were revealed to them through translations of foreign works introduced by the Dutch at Nagasaki. To thinking men of the type of those who went to Fujita for instruction the Dutch books formed the only media whereby the desired information concerning the Western world could be obtained, and considering the difficulties under which those who sought knowledge in those days must have laboured the perseverance shown in its pursuit reflects vast credit on professors and pupils alike. Long prior to Commodore Perry’s first visit in 1853 the Japanese people were cognisant to some extent of the existence of railways, and steam engines,—even of the electric telegraph, it is said, which was at that time quite new to Europe and America,—and blast furnaces, mills, and workshops of different kinds had been set up on plans obtained from Nagasaki, with no inconsiderable share of success. Other industrial inventions had been introduced, which, if they did not precisely originate in the Occident, had at least been brought to some degree of perfection there, such as the art of printing from movable types, which is said to have belonged in the first place to Korea, and so with human effort in other directions it was at last discovered that all unknown to the Western world the leaven had been working in the various strata of society in Japan with results as astounding to the