What was once an actual official title sunk to be a mere final syllable in a name. The writer, when a resident in the Mikado’s empire, was accustomed to address persons with most lofty, grandiloquent, and high flown names, titles and decorative patronymics, in which the glories of decayed imperialism and medieval history were reflected. His cook was an Imperial Guardsman of the Left, his stable boy was a Regent of the University, while not a few servants, mechanics, field hands and manure carriers, were Lords of the Chamber, Promoters of Learning, Superintendents of the Palace Gardens, or various high functionaries with salary and office. Just as the decayed mythology and far off history of the classic nations furnished names for the slaves in Carolina cotton fields, in the days when Lempriêre was consulted for the christening of newly born negro babies, so, the names borne by thousands of Japanese to-day afford to the foreign analyst of words and to the native scholar both amusement and reflection. To the Americans on Perry’s fleet they furnished endless jest as phonetic and linguistic curiosities. ----- [26] A Japanese poet puts this stanza in the mouth of Perry; “Little did I dream that I should here, after crossing the salty path, gaze upon the snow-capped Fuji of this land.” [27] “M—— Y—— is at Shimoda, and has not forgotten the art of lying.” Townsend Harris to Perry, October 27, 1857. CHAPTER XXXI. PANIC IN YEDO. RECEPTION OF THE PRESIDENT’S LETTER. OPENING upon the beautiful bay (_yé_), like a door (_do_), the great city in the Kuantō, or Broad East of Japan, was well-named Bay-door, or Yedo. Founded as a military stronghold tributary to the Shō-gun at Kamakura in the fourteenth century, by Ota Dō Kuan, it was made in 1603 the seat of the government by Iyéyasŭ. This man, mighty both in war and in peace, and probably Japan’s greatest statesman, made the little village a mighty city, and founded the line of Shō-guns of the Tokugawa family, which ruled in the person of fifteen Tycoons until 1868. To the twelfth of the line Iyéyoshi, President Fillmore’s letter was to be delivered, and with the thirteenth, Iyésada, the American treaty made. The Americans dubbed each “Emperor”! Yedo’s chief history and glory are associated with the fortunes of the Tokugawas. It had reached the zenith of its greatness when Perry’s ships entered the bay. Its palaces, castles, temples, and towers were then in splendor never attained before or beheld in Japan since. It was the centre of wealth, learning, art and gay life. Its population numbered one million two hundred thousand souls, of whom were five hundred thousand of the military class.