The Japan expedition. Japan and around the world: An account of three visits to the Japanese empire, with sketches of Madeira, St. Helena, cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Ceylon, Singapore, China, and Loo-ChooSpalding, J. W. (J. Willett)
History
The Japan expedition. Japan and around the world: An account of three visits to the Japanese empire, with sketches of Madeira, St. Helena, cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Ceylon, Singapore, China, and Loo-Choo
Spalding, J. W. (J. Willett)
Japan -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
We knew that Loo-Choo had been visited in 1846 by a French missionary,
Forcade, who had subsequently left, but were rather surprised on
anchoring abreast of a tall and singular formation, called in the
surveys of the “Alceste and Lyra,” “Capstan rock,” but which more
nearly resembles a large old barn, with dark thatched roof, and huge
projecting eaves—to see flying from its summit the English flag. We
afterward ascertained that it was a flag giving protection to Dr.
Bettelheim, a converted Hungarian Jew, who had married an English
lady, and had been sent by an English naval mission society, some
seven years before, as a missionary to Loo-Choo. He did not appear to
be a man whose disposition and temperament were calculated to afford
him success in his labors, although he had persevered in his study of
their language until he could preach to the natives in it, and had
occupied his lonely position for years, with no other Christian faces
than those of his wife and three children. The Loo-Chooans had tried
every way to get rid of him; they had addressed, through the Chinese,
to the English minister, Lord Palmerston, remonstrances against the
mission, which invariably closed with the petition that he would remove
Bettelheim. They may not have known Vattel, but they urged with much
energy his doctrine, that a missionary should leave a country when
his presence was not agreeable to its people. But the Dr. held his
ground, though he was made to undergo some rather rough treatment.
Himself, by his professional skill in the healing art, and his wife,
during the prevalence of the smallpox, had been very attentive to the
people, which caused the authorities to become quite jealous. They were
followed and hooted at in the streets, and finally, Mrs. B. during a
walk, was forcibly separated from her husband, and himself beaten. The
British war-steamer “Sphynx” happened to pay a visit to Napa not long
afterward, when the authorities made ample apology for the offence,
and promised better things in future. They removed his servants, or
constantly changed them. They erected spy-houses opposite the gate of
his residence, which were constantly attended. If he preached to a
crowd in the street, or market-place, at a signal from the Japanese
police on the island, his auditors all ran away. If he distributed
tracts in their language at night, the next morning, the police brought
them back to him, carefully tied up.
They were much disturbed by our presence, and if our sails were
loosened to dry, they wondered why we did not sail away. We made a
reconnoissance of their harbor to ascertain or confirm the accuracy
of the surveys of Beechy, and the flag, or station staffs, we erected
on shore for this purpose, around which numbers would gather, sorely
perplexed them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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