The Tycoonate itself was a perpetual cause of jealousy among the three great families, one of which was Mito, who had themselves pretensions to the honour; and the combination of their private grievances with a quasi-patriotic and probably sincere hatred of foreign intruders raised a storm against the Tycoon with which his advisers found it hard to cope. The Government being committed to the protection of foreigners, massacres of the latter offered a ready means of gratifying the double passion of hatred of them and of the Tycoon. But although the foreign representatives and the Tycoon were thus to an unknown extent the objects of a common enmity, it was yet impossible for them to make common cause, for they were not in harmony. The Government would willingly have got rid of the treaties or reduced them to a dead letter. The foreign Ministers, on the other hand, had no choice but to insist on the fulfilment of the engagements into which the Government had entered. Not for them to count the cost, the difficulties, or the danger: relaxation of their demands would have aggravated all three. So there was nothing for it but the "rigour of the game." The British Minister held decided views on the importance of keeping alive all rights and privileges by exercising them. China would have taught him, if the knowledge did not come by nature, the value of the modern principle of "effective occupation" as the only valid sanction of an abstract title. The treaties of 1858 conferred upon the representatives of Foreign Powers the right of travelling throughout Japan. The Tycoon's Government desired to restrict or nullify the privilege, no doubt for reasons quite sufficient from their point of view. Mr Alcock on his part saw good reasons for opposing this tendency from the outset. Consequently, as a first experiment, he organised a journey by the _tokaido_ to the "matchless" mountain, Fujiyama, distant about eighty miles from the capital. Every effort was made by the Government officials to dissuade him from the undertaking; dangers natural and supernatural were conjured up, a more convenient season was recommended. At length their pleas for the abandonment or delay of the expedition having been exhausted without any effect on the resolution of the Minister, the officials became helpful in the preparations and most careful to provide for the success of the journey. The party--eight Europeans in all with a large native contingent--set out on September 4, 1860, rather late in the year for the ascent, which was, nevertheless, successfully accomplished, and for the first time the foot of the stranger trod the sacred summit, the object of constant religious pilgrimages. The whole journey, including a detour to the hot springs of Atami, occupied one month: it was fruitful in first-hand information, and replete with agreeable experiences.