Into that rare atmosphere, surcharged with perilous elements, sailed Commodore Perry of the United States Navy in the year 1853. Some fifty years later, Pierre Loti entered Japanese waters in a French warship. "Et nous entrions maintenant dans une espèce de couloir ombreux, entre deux rangées de très hautes montagnes, qui se succédaient avec une bizarrerie symétrique--comme les 'portants' d'un décor tout en profondeur, extrêmement beau, mais pas assez naturel--on eut dit que ce Japon s'ouvrait devant nous, en une déchirure enchantée, pour nous laisser pénétrer dans son cceur même" (_Madame Chrysanthème_). It was Commodore Perry who rent open the heart of Old Japan, and her blood flowed. The gallant commodore, anchoring off Cape Idzu on 8th July, 1853, with two steam frigates and two sloops of war, demanded no more than a treaty securing help and proper treatment to sailors shipwrecked {93} on the coasts of Japan. The Japanese Government said neither yes nor no; whereupon Perry gave them a year to consider the matter, promising to return at the end of it with a "larger fleet." And on 12th February, 1854, there was Commodore Perry in the Bay of Yedo with three steam frigates and four sloops of war. After long negotiations, a treaty of amity was signed, including a promise to succour ships in distress, and (above all) opening two new ports. From that moment the isolation of Japan was ended. The door opened but a crack; but into that crack the wedge of commerce, driven by the lust of gain, was thrust by America (1854), Russia (1857), England and France (1858). In 1859, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Rutherford Alcock, British representative of H.B.M. Government in China was appointed her Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Japan. His book, _The Capital of the Tycoon_ (London, 1863. Longman, 2 vols.), gives one of the first authoritative accounts of Old Japan presented to the British public. During his three years in that country he was constantly in peril of assassination. In August, 1859, an officer and a sailor from one of the Russian ships lying in the harbour were cut down and slashed to pieces in the streets of Yedo, and a steward was severely wounded. In the following year the Japanese linguist attached the British Legation was stabbed to death, and two Dutch ship-captains were cut to pieces in Yokohama. The next demonstration of the hatred of foreigners was the murder of the Gotairo, the Regent, Iko-mono-no-kami. His escort was suddenly attacked as it was leaving his castle by some twenty swordsmen, wielding the terrible Japanese two-handed weapon. The hands of the bearers of his norimon were severed on the pole and the Regent himself decapitated, his head being carried away as a trophy.