Prominent among such patriots was the old Daimyo of Konda, father of the present Prince Hagané. His title more literally translated would be that of "Duke," or "Feudal Prince." His lands, lying far to the south, with a rough channel to divide them from the mainland, held almost a separate and independent existence. His chief province, and the one from which he took his title, was Konda. "Hagané" was the family name. At the first hint of national uprising the old daimyo, abandoning his own loved home, came at once to Kioto, and later made the journey with the young Emperor to Yedo. By right he assumed the place of guardian and adviser. The old daimyo was, as it chanced, somewhat learned in foreign matters, and this, in spite of the Shogun's rigid exclusion of all things foreign, of the death-penalty to any Japanese attempting to leave Japan, or, having managed to leave, attempting to return. This was a mighty armor of self-protection to the Tokugawa policy; but, in common with most armor, it had just one small flaw. In this case the flaw was a tiny island, granted to the Dutch, called "Deshima." Not far from the Konda borders lay this innocent fleck of earth, surrounded by blue native seas, and overgrown, like other islands, with tall feathery bamboo, camellia, and camphor trees; and yet, because of its existence, Hagané gained foreign books,--from it he smuggled a Dutch interpreter who could read and write not only his own language, but Japanese. Other curious minds drew near this spring of knowledge; and, partly because of it, long before Perry's expedition to the Far East, the Japanese people had become restless, eager, awake, and in ferment for a national readjustment. Hagané's one son, Sanétomo, a few years older than the boy Emperor, and reared as nearly in friendship with him as reverence would allow, was among the first youths of his class to travel in Europe, and to acquire any European language. Upon his father's death, he was asked by the Emperor to take at once the offices and semi-royal prerogatives of the lamented elder statesman. All the daimyos had received national bonds for the alienation of their fiefs; and thus those who had been most powerful still enjoyed great wealth in their own right. With the Emperor once firmly established, etiquette and the restrictions of court-life began to prove irksome to Sanétomo. One could have continued to practise fine manners under the Shoguns. Here to-day was something better. A new army was to be formed; after that a new navy. Hagané advised adaptation of tactics from the German military school, its unbending automatonism appearing to him a safe restriction for enthusiastic beginners. From the first, however, his mind had been fixed upon the administrative methods of that marvellous small heart of an enormous empire, England. Japan should be to the Far East what England had become to the West. What one island had accomplished, that also could another do.