Long before Commodore Perry gotthere, Japanese castaways and American whalers were prising Japan open
遠早於佩裡准將到那兒，日本漂流者和美國捕鯨人已經撬開了日本的大門
IF THAT double-bolted land,Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom thecredit will be due; for already she is on the threshold.
The first English-languageteacher to come to Japan landed in a tiny skiff, but before he did so, RanaldMacDonald pulled the bung from his boat in order to half-swamp her, in the hopeof winning over locals with a story that he had come as someone who had fledthe cruel tyrannies of a whale-ship captain and then been shipwrecked. The fourlocals who approached by boat, though certainly amazed, were also courteous,for they bowed low, stroked their huge beards and emitted a throaty rumbling.“How do you do?” MacDonald cheerily replied. This meeting took place in tinyNutsuka Cove on Rishiri Island off Hokkaido on July 1st 1848, and a darkbasaltic pebble from the cove sits on this correspondent’s desk as he writes,picked up from between the narrow fishing skiffs that even today are pulled upon the beach.
乘著小型帆船，第一位來到日本的英文老師登上這片土地，但在這之前，Ranald MacDonald從他的船上拔出塞子，造成船半沉的假象，希望透過他編造的故事——他從一個殘暴專治的捕鯨船長手中逃出來又遇到了海難——來贏得當地人的信任。4個當地人駕船靠過來，儘管他們理所當然的感到驚奇，卻還是彬彬有禮，他們深深的鞠躬，捋著長長的鬍子，吐著嘶啞的喉音。“How do you do?”MacDonald爽快的回答。這次相見發生在1848年7月1日，北海道利尻島的Nutsuka灣上，這位通訊者從小捕魚船之間挑選了一塊深黑色的玄武岩作為他書寫時的桌子，至今，這塊岩石仍在海灣的岸上。
Rishiri is about as perfect around volcanic island, perhaps nine miles across, as it is possible for aschoolchild to draw. It is also just about as far north in Japan proper as itis possible to be: if you start climbing the volcano, the coast of RussianSakhalin comes into view. MacDonald took an intentionally oblique route to getinto closed Japan. And indeed, the locals who approached MacDonald were notJapanese at all, but rather the supremely hairy Ainu, whose women tattooedtheir upper lip.
The Ainu were the originalinhabitants of much of northern Japan, while related groups had long settledSakhalin and Kamchatka. One 19th-century British explorer and naval captain,Henry Craven St John, described the fair-skinned Ainu as “something like astrange drop of oil in the Ocean, being surrounded by Mongols [includingJapanese] yet not one of them.” But just as European settlers were pushing theAmerican frontier westwards—MacDonald himself was born in present-day Oregon ofPrincess Raven, favourite daughter of the Chinook king, and a Scottish furtrader with the Hudson’s Bay Company—so the Japanese were pushing north. Modern-dayHokkaido (literally, the way to the northern seas) was then known as Ezo, whosewritten characters connote wildness and barbarity. Today, only vestigialcommunities of Ainu survive.
Far from fleeing a tyrant,MacDonald had in fact had to plead with a concerned captain of the Plymouth,a whaler out of Sag Harbour, New York, to be put down in the waters near Japan.MacDonald had an insatiable hunger for adventure, and the desire to enterJapan—tantalisingly shut to the outside world—had taken a grip on him. Both menknew of the risks, but the captain was less inclined to discount them. For 250years, since the Tokugawa shogunate kicked Christian missionaries and tradersout, only a tightly controlled trade with the Netherlands and China wastolerated in the southern port of Nagasaki, with a further licence for Koreanselsewhere. Though British and Russian ships had from time to time proddedJapan’s carapace, an edict in 1825 spelled out what would happen to uninvitedguests “demanding firewood, water and provisions”:
The continuation of such insolentproceedings, as also the intention of introducing the Christian religion havingcome to our knowledge, it is impossible to look on with indifference. If infuture foreign vessels should come near any port whatsoever, the localinhabitants shall conjointly drive them away; but should they go away peaceablyit is not necessary to pursue them. Should any foreigners land anywhere, theymust be arrested or killed, and if the ship approaches the shore it must bedestroyed.
Two decades later the despoticfeudalism of the Tokugawa shogunate was under greater strain. At home the landhad been ravaged by floods and earthquakes, and famines had driven thedispossessed and even samurai to storm the rice warehouses of the daimyo,the local lords. Abroad, Western powers were making ominous inroads. After theopium war of 1840-42 China ceded Hong Kong to Britain. Meanwhile, thanks to agrowth in whaling and trade with China, the number of distressed Westernvessels appearing along Japan’s shores was increasing. Moderate voices madethemselves heard within the government. A new edict was softer:
It is not thought fitting todrive away all foreign ships irrespective of their condition, in spite of theirlack of supplies, or of their having stranded or their suffering from stress ofweather. You should, when necessary, supply them with food and fuel and advisethem to return, but on no account allow foreigners to land. If, however, afterreceiving supplies and instructions they do not withdraw, you will, of coursedrive them away.
MacDonald knew the risks, andapproached Japan obliquely in order to minimise them. Even so, he spent thenext ten months in captivity.
Ocean streams
洋流
MacDonald’scuriosity about Japanhad first been aroused as a child, with the arrival in 1834 of three Japanesecastaways. More than a year earlier a full Japanese crew had set off in theHojun-marufrom the port of Tobawith a cargo of rice and ceramics intended as annual tribute for the shogun upthe coast in Edo (modern-day Tokyo).Very quickly they were blown offshore by a sudden autumn storm. Fourteen monthslater the crippled junk and its survivors were washed ashore on Cape Flattery,in current-day Washingtonstate, along with the bales of rice and boxes of fine porcelain. A delightedband of Makah Indians seized what they could of the cargo and enslaved thesurvivors. The Hudson’sBay Company, who traded with the Makah, found the sailors and bought them.
Seafarersfrom the isles of Japanhave been drifting eastwards in crippled vessels for hundreds of years, andperhaps millennia. Presumably, they mingled blood if they survived along theway—MacDonald himself felt he might be a recipient.
Theirconveyor belt was the Kuroshio (Black) Current, named after the deep colour ofits waters. The Kuroshio is the north Pacific’s Gulf Stream, for it brings warmwater from the tropics up east of Taiwan, north-eastwards along the Japanesecoast and on towards the polar regions, sweeping east below the Aleutian islesand down the American coast (see map). To this day Japanese fishing floats andeven monks’ wooden sandals are washed up on the shores of the Pacific Northwest. Katherine Plummer in “The Shogun’s ReluctantAmbassadors: Japanese Sea Drifters in the North Pacific” (Oregon HistoricalSociety, 1991) relates the case of the ghost ship Ryoei-maru, amotorised but stricken coastal fishing boat found off Vancouver Island in 1927with the parched corpses of the crew on board and a poignant diary of theirlast days.
Sotyrannically did the Tokugawa shogunate wish to deny its subjects outside knowledgethat it was not just foreign sailors on the coast who risked punishment.Japanese sailors were not allowed to leave the country. They knew that if everthey were shipwrecked on foreign shores, then they were barred from returningto Japan.Some survivors came back regardless: sometimes a Russian ship would put themdown among the Kurile Islands in a baidarka,a local canoe, loaded with provisions; the sailor would then make his way aloneto Ezo. Others came back to Nagasaki via Chinaon Chinese junks, with the help of Western missionaries, but if execution didnot always follow, a stiff and lengthy interrogation certainly did.
Tokugawaxenophobia increased the risks of wreck or drift. To prevent sailors goingabroad, shipbuilding rules restricted the seaworthiness of Japanese vessels.The coastal traders that brought grain and other tribute to Edowere in essence overloaded arks. They lacked stability. The wind caught theirhigh sterns, hampering manoeuvrability. Meanwhile, they lacked the sturdycentre-mounted rudders of Chinese junks or Western craft, and Japanese ruddersmounted to one side snapped readily in heavy seas, just when the craft mostneeded steerage.
To reducethe risk of foundering in a storm, the crew of a rudderless craft would cutdown the mast, turning their vessel into a hulk, at the mercy of wind andwaves. The crews of such stricken ships tended to turn spiritual. In 1813,according to a later account by the captain, Jukichi, the crew of Tokujo-maru,blown off-course for Edo with a cargo of rice,cut their top-knots as an act of purification, and one crew member shaved hishead to become a monk. They prayed to Buddhist and Shinto gods (every vesselcarried a shrine), and they prepared divination papers to find out where theywere. After a year and a half of drifting, during which most of the crew died,three survivors were picked up by a British ship off the coast of California.
Jukichi, reckoned to be the first recorded Japanese to land in America, returned home four yearslater, via Alaska and Kamchatka, and spent the first night in the villagetemple, as he had promised the gods. He spent the rest of his life beggingfunds for the memorial stone he had promised his crew.
Theshogunate’s hungry demand for tribute, which forced many vessels to set sailafter the autumn rice harvest, no doubt increased the number of sea-drifters:that there was a word for them, hyoryumin, attests to their number. Theplentiful supply of krill at the point where the warm waters of the Kuroshiomeet Arctic waters, which attracted whales, no doubt increased the number of hyoryuminpicked up by Western ships. A whaler from Brighton, Massachusetts, is reckoned tohave been the first in Japanese waters, in 1820, when it came upon a pod ofsperm whales. A year later 30 American ships cruised around Japan, and by1839 the number of Western whalers had grown to 550, four-fifths of themAmerican. It was off Japan,of course, that Captain Ahab lost his leg (“dismasted”) to the great whitewhale that was his nemesis, and in Herman Melville’s imagination the mysteryand danger of Moby Dick is fused with the land around which he swims.
As the northPacific became more crowded, some of the Japanese sea-drifters were bound tohelp unlock the double-bolted land even before Commodore Matthew Perry steamedinto Edo Bayin 1853 demanding recognition for the United States. One such wasOtokichi, the youngest of the three found enslaved near Cape Flattery. The Hudson’s Bay Companyfactor had sent the crew to London, with anotion that they might be used as a means to open up trade with Japan. Theywere then shipped to Macau, where they helped Karl Gutzlaff, an indefatigablemissionary with a Hong Kong streetstill named after him, to translate St John’s gospel into Japanese. They hoped to return to Japan in an American trader, but the vessel metwith cannon fire in Edo Bay and Kagoshima.Rebuffed, they resumed their life in Macau.
Otokichiwent on to Shanghai to work for a British trading company, married anEnglishwoman—perhaps the first Japanese to do so—and prospered; after her deathhe married an Indian. As a British subject, John Matthew Ottoson was to returntwice to Japan, the secondtime with the Royal Navy in 1854, to act as translator during the negotiationsthat opened Japanup to British trade. He is buried in the JapaneseCemetery in Singapore.
The most famous sea-drifter is known in the West and even Japanas John Manjiro. Two days after Melville set off in early 1841 from Fairhaven, Massachusetts,on the whaling adventure that provided the material for “Moby Dick”, Manjiro,the youngest of five crew, set out fishing near his villageof Nakanohama on the rugged south-westerncoast of Shikoku, one of Japan’sfour main islands. On the fourth day, the skipper saw black clouds looming andordered the boat to be rowed to shore. It was too late. Over two weeks theydrifted east almost 400 miles, landing on Torishima, a barren volcanic speckwhose only sustenance was brackish water lying in puddles and nesting seabirds.In late summer even the albatrosses left. After five months, while outscavenging, Manjiro saw a ship sailing towards the island.這些海上漂流者中在西方世界最出名的當屬約翰–萬次郎了（John Manjiro，又名中濱–萬次郎Nakahama Manjiro，譯註）即便是在日本他也是家喻戶曉。1841年初，就在梅爾維爾離開馬薩諸塞州的費爾黑文（Fairhaven）開始那段日後成就了《白鯨記》的捕鯨歷險後兩天，萬次郎隨同另外四名年長的同伴離開他們的村子，位於日本四大島嶼，四國島西南部崎嶇的海岸邊的中之濱町，出海打魚。他們在海上航行的第四天，舵手發現滾滾烏雲向他們壓來，急忙下令將船划向海岸。但為時已晚。此後兩週多的時間裡他們向東漂過了400英里終於在酉島上了岸，酉島是座火山噴發形成的荒蕪小島，他們只能飲水坑裡的苦鹹水捕食島上築巢的海鳥充飢。而到了夏末，連信天翁都離開了小島。就這樣在島上度過了五個月，外出覓食的萬次郎看到了一艘船向小島駛來。
The castaways’ saviour, William Whitfield, captain of theJohnHowland, a Fairhavenwhaler, took a shine to the sparky lad. In Honoluluhe asked Manjiro if he wanted to carry on to Fairhaven. The boy did, studied at Bartlett’s Academy, whichtaught maths and navigation to its boys, went to church and fell for localgirls. He later signed on for a three-year whaling voyage to the Pacific, andwhen he returned, joined a lumber ship bound round Cape Horn for San Francisco and the California gold rush. He made a handsome sumand found passage back to Honolulu.這五位日本魯濱遜們的救星，來自Fairhaven的捕鯨船，約翰–霍蘭號（John Howland）的船長William Whitfield，給這個聰明的年輕人帶來了全新的人生。當他們抵達火奴魯魯後，船長問萬次郎，是否願意隨他們前往費爾黑文。他同意了，此後他在教授數學和航海的Bartlett’s學院學習和當地人一樣去教堂禮拜，與當地的女孩墜入情網。再後來，他簽約重返太平洋參加了一次歷時三年的捕鯨遠航，返航之後他又登上一艘木材運輸船繞過霍恩角（Cape Horn）前往舊金山，加入了加州的淘金大軍。
By early 1851—the year of “Moby Dick” and two years beforeCommodore Perry turned up—Manjiro was at last back in Japan, and things were alreadychanging. He and two of the original crew had been dropped in their opensailing boat by an American whaling ship off the Ryukyu Islands. They were taken to Kagoshima,seat of the Satsuma clan. The local daimyo, Shimazu Nariakira, grilledManjiro, but the tone was inquisitive more than inquisitorial: please toexplain the steamship, trains, photography, etc. In Nagasaki, Manjiro had to trample on an imageof the Virgin and child. He was asked whether the katsurabush could beseen from Americagrowing on the moon. He described America’s system of government, themodest living of the president and how New Englanders were so industrious thatthey used their time on the lavatory to read. Amazingly, he dared criticiseJapan’s ill-treatment of foreign ships in need of wood and water, and made aheartfelt plea for the opening of Japan, going so far as to put the Americancase for a coal-bunkering station in Japan to allow steamships to cross thePacific from California to China.1851年《白鯨記》面世距佩裡准將到達日本還有兩年，這年年初萬次郎終於回到了日本，滄海桑田變革之風已經吹進了他的國家。在琉球外海，一艘美國捕鯨船放下了他和兩名當年的同伴乘坐的小船。他們被帶到了薩摩藩的領地鹿兒島。當地的大名島津齊彬問了萬次郎很多問題，讓他介紹諸如蒸汽船、火車、照片等神奇的事物，題問是友好的充滿了好奇，並沒有盤查的意思。不過，在長崎，萬次郎被迫用腳踩踏一幅聖母和耶穌的畫像。人們問他在美國能不能看到月亮上的桂樹。他向人們描述了美國的政治體系，總統制下的優越生活以及新英格蘭人民的社會如何的工業化以至於連上廁所的時間都被利用起來讀書讀報。讓人驚訝的是他敢於批評日本政府，指責其慢待了了途經日本期望補充木材和淡水的外國船隻，他也真心希望日本能夠開放，甚至於打算讓美國在日本興建一個補充煤炭的燃料站，以使蒸汽船能夠從加州出發橫跨太平洋到達中國。
Rather than being kept in prison, he was freed to visit hismother—in Nakanohana she showed him his memorial stone—and was even made asamurai. In Tosa (modern-day Kochi),he taught English to men who were later influential during the overthrow of theshogunate and the establishment of constitutional government in the Meiji period,from 1860. During negotiations in 1854 with Perry, Manjiro acted as aninterpreter. Later, in 1860, he joined the first Japanese embassy to America. But asChristopher Benfey explains in “The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, JapaneseEccentrics and the Opening of Old Japan” (Random House, 2003), if the terror ofbeing lost at sea was the defining experience of Manjiro’s life, then hisgreatest gift to the Japanese was his translation of Nathaniel Bowditch’s “TheNew American Practical Navigator”, known to generations of mariners as the“seaman’s bible”.幕府並沒有逮捕萬次郎，並允許他去探望自己的母親——在中之濱，母親帶著萬次郎去看了他的墓碑——幕府還冊封他為武士。他在土佐（現在的高知）教授英語，學生中不乏在後來推翻幕府統制頗具影響的人物，1860年起他又擔任了明治立憲政府的官員。1854年幕府與佩裡談判時他是翻譯之一。此後，他於1860年成為了第一批日本駐美外交使團的一員。不過，正如ChristopherBenfey在他的《大潮洶湧：鍍金年代的異類、日本的離經叛道者與舊日本的開放》（蘭登書屋2003年版）一書中所說的，如果說怒海迷航的恐怖經歷成就了萬次郎的人生，那麼他帶給日本最大的禮物則是他所翻譯的，由Nathaniel Bowditch撰寫被水手們稱為“海員聖經”的《新美國航海實用手冊》一書。
As for Ranald MacDonald, though he was handed over by the Ainu andtaken by junk to Nagasakifor interrogation, he was treated decently. With a respectable education and agentle presence, he was clearly a cut above the usual rough-necked castaway,and he was put to teaching English. Some of the students who came to his celllater flourished as interpreters and compilers of dictionaries. The mostnotable, Einosuke Moriyama, served as the chief translator in Japan’s negotiations with Perry, as well asinterpreter to America’sfirst consul to Japan,Townsend Harris.至於羅納德–邁克唐納（Ranald MacDonald），雖然阿依努人將他移交給了政府，然後他又被用帆船送往長崎接受詢問，但日本人待他還是很友好的。由於受過良好教育、舉止優雅，他與通常那些粗鄙的落水者們形成了強烈的反差，人們讓他去教授英語。他的學生中有一些後來成為了優秀的翻譯家和字典的編撰者。其中最著名的莫過於森山榮之助，他是日本與佩裡談判時的首席翻譯官，還擔任了美國第一任駐日領事Townsend Harris的翻譯。
In the spring of 1849 the American warship Preble arrivedin Nagasaki,its commander, James Glynn, ignoring the imprecations from assorted Japanesecraft to “go away, go away”. The American government had heard that the Lagoda,an American whaler, had been wrecked on the Japanese coast and a number of crewtaken prisoner. (Historians now think the crew, whose numbers had diminished inprison through sickness and a suicide, were deserters.) ThePreble wasdispatched from Hong Kong to rescue them, the government thinking no doubt thiswas also a useful exercise in testing Japan’s exclusionary resolve. ToGlynn’s surprise, he learnt that MacDonald, who had been presumed dead, wasalso in Nagasaki.The Preble carried the exultant adventurer to Macau, where he promptlysigned on a ship that took him to Australia’s goldfields.1849年春，美國戰艦Preble號在船長James Glynn的指揮下駛入長崎，雖然能聽到岸上的人對他們怒吼，說者各種他們聽不懂的日語到“滾開、滾開”的英語，但他們充耳不聞。美國政府聽說，一艘名為Lagoda號的美國捕鯨船在日本海岸附近失事，多名船員被囚禁。（歷史學家現在認為，這些船員是逃兵，在押期間，由於疾病和自殺，他們的人數有所減少。）Preble號由香港出發前往營救他們，美國政府無疑也是企圖透過這次行動來檢驗日本的軍事戒備狀況。Glynn萬萬沒有想到的是，他聽說那個早被認定已經死亡的邁克唐納也在長崎。Preble號將這位探險家帶往澳門，他為此欣喜若狂，之後他在那裡搭上一艘船去了澳洲的金礦。
A secret no more
神秘面紗今不再
Very soon after, Japanopened to the world. Its adoption of industrialisation and Westernconstitutional government was perhaps the most abrupt transformation of acountry in history. That is well recorded. Less noticed was the change tosailors around Japan’scoasts. Yet St John, the British explorer,relates a foreign shipwreck on Hokkaido justtwo decades after MacDonald left Nagasaki.The captain of the Eliza Corry was found by locals close to death on theshore. In short order, they made European clothes for him, even finding him awide-awake hat. A table, fork and small and large spoon were fashioned for him,while a junk, dispatched in a hurry, returned with three Californian apples andthree sheets of foreign notepaper to complete his contentment.此後沒有多久，日本向世界敞開了它的大門。它很快就接受了工業化以及西方式的立憲政府，這恐怕是歷史上最快的一次國家轉型，因而廣為人知。很少有人知道的是這一變革對航行在日本海岸附近的水手們產生的影響。英國探險家約翰爵士（St John）講述了邁克唐納離開長崎二十年後北海道附近一位外國海難倖存者的經歷。當地在海岸上發現Eliza Corry號的船長時他已經奄奄一息了。他們沒花多少時間就給他找來了歐洲式樣的衣服，甚至還有一頂闊邊呢帽（就是常見的那種圓筒形有圓邊的帽子，譯註）。在他的要求下人們找來了一張餐桌還有叉子和大大小小的勺子，還有一艘帆船急匆匆地起航給他帶回了三個加州產的蘋果以及三長外中國產的筆記紙。
As for whaling around Japan, vestigial echoesreverberate. Every northern winter, Japan faces barbs for sending awhaling fleet into Antarctic waters. And why, asks the mayor of Taiji, a smallwhaling port, should Japanese ships have to go so far, suffering internationaloutrage? Because, he says, answering his own question, the Americans fished outall the Japanese whales in the century before last.時至今日捕鯨業仍未在日本絕跡。每年北半球冬季時節，日本會因為向南極海域派遣捕鯨船而面臨人們的嘲諷。從事捕鯨業的港口小城太地的市長反問我們，為什麼日本捕鯨船不得不冒著全世界的憤怒遠涉重洋呢？對此他自問自答道，還不是因為美華人早在兩個世界前就把日本所有的鯨魚給捕了個精光嘛。
Long before Commodore Perry gotthere, Japanese castaways and American whalers were prising Japan open
遠早於佩裡准將到那兒，日本漂流者和美國捕鯨人已經撬開了日本的大門
IF THAT double-bolted land,Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom thecredit will be due; for already she is on the threshold.
Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”,1851
就說那一向閉關鎖國的日本吧，它的開放可以說應該完全歸功於捕鯨船，是捕鯨船開到了它的大門口，把外面世界的文明帶給了它。
赫爾曼·梅爾維爾，《白鯨記》，1851
The first English-languageteacher to come to Japan landed in a tiny skiff, but before he did so, RanaldMacDonald pulled the bung from his boat in order to half-swamp her, in the hopeof winning over locals with a story that he had come as someone who had fledthe cruel tyrannies of a whale-ship captain and then been shipwrecked. The fourlocals who approached by boat, though certainly amazed, were also courteous,for they bowed low, stroked their huge beards and emitted a throaty rumbling.“How do you do?” MacDonald cheerily replied. This meeting took place in tinyNutsuka Cove on Rishiri Island off Hokkaido on July 1st 1848, and a darkbasaltic pebble from the cove sits on this correspondent’s desk as he writes,picked up from between the narrow fishing skiffs that even today are pulled upon the beach.
乘著小型帆船，第一位來到日本的英文老師登上這片土地，但在這之前，Ranald MacDonald從他的船上拔出塞子，造成船半沉的假象，希望透過他編造的故事——他從一個殘暴專治的捕鯨船長手中逃出來又遇到了海難——來贏得當地人的信任。4個當地人駕船靠過來，儘管他們理所當然的感到驚奇，卻還是彬彬有禮，他們深深的鞠躬，捋著長長的鬍子，吐著嘶啞的喉音。“How do you do?”MacDonald爽快的回答。這次相見發生在1848年7月1日，北海道利尻島的Nutsuka灣上，這位通訊者從小捕魚船之間挑選了一塊深黑色的玄武岩作為他書寫時的桌子，至今，這塊岩石仍在海灣的岸上。
Rishiri is about as perfect around volcanic island, perhaps nine miles across, as it is possible for aschoolchild to draw. It is also just about as far north in Japan proper as itis possible to be: if you start climbing the volcano, the coast of RussianSakhalin comes into view. MacDonald took an intentionally oblique route to getinto closed Japan. And indeed, the locals who approached MacDonald were notJapanese at all, but rather the supremely hairy Ainu, whose women tattooedtheir upper lip.
利尻島大約9英里寬，是個近乎圓形的火山島，圓得小孩子也畫得出來。它遠在日本北部：如果爬上火山山頂，剛好看得見俄國的庫頁島的海岸。MacDonald故意偏離航線，靠近閉關鎖國的日本。當然，靠近麥克唐納的當地居民並不是日本人，而是多毛的阿伊努人——女人則在上唇紋身。
The Ainu were the originalinhabitants of much of northern Japan, while related groups had long settledSakhalin and Kamchatka. One 19th-century British explorer and naval captain,Henry Craven St John, described the fair-skinned Ainu as “something like astrange drop of oil in the Ocean, being surrounded by Mongols [includingJapanese] yet not one of them.” But just as European settlers were pushing theAmerican frontier westwards—MacDonald himself was born in present-day Oregon ofPrincess Raven, favourite daughter of the Chinook king, and a Scottish furtrader with the Hudson’s Bay Company—so the Japanese were pushing north. Modern-dayHokkaido (literally, the way to the northern seas) was then known as Ezo, whosewritten characters connote wildness and barbarity. Today, only vestigialcommunities of Ainu survive.
阿伊努人是北日本大部分地區的原住民，在庫頁島和堪察加半島也定居著與他們有關係的部落。一個19世紀英國Explorer和海軍船長，亨利克萊文聖約翰，稱面板白皙的阿伊努人為“如同滴落在大洋上的不可思議的油，被蒙古人（包括日本人）環繞，卻又不是其中的一員。”但正如歐洲移民正將美國的邊界向西部推移——麥克唐納自己出生在今天萊文公主（奇努克王寵愛的女兒）和蘇格蘭皮毛貿易商的俄勒岡州——日本人也向北推進。今天的北海道從前稱為札幌，字面上暗示著野蠻與殘忍。現在，只有退化的阿伊努族群還倖存下來。
Far from fleeing a tyrant,MacDonald had in fact had to plead with a concerned captain of the Plymouth,a whaler out of Sag Harbour, New York, to be put down in the waters near Japan.MacDonald had an insatiable hunger for adventure, and the desire to enterJapan—tantalisingly shut to the outside world—had taken a grip on him. Both menknew of the risks, but the captain was less inclined to discount them. For 250years, since the Tokugawa shogunate kicked Christian missionaries and tradersout, only a tightly controlled trade with the Netherlands and China wastolerated in the southern port of Nagasaki, with a further licence for Koreanselsewhere. Though British and Russian ships had from time to time proddedJapan’s carapace, an edict in 1825 spelled out what would happen to uninvitedguests “demanding firewood, water and provisions”:
麥克唐納並非從一個暴君手中逃走，事實上，他不得不懇求普利茅斯的對此甚有興趣的一位從紐約賽格港出海的捕鯨船的船長把他帶到日本近海。麥克唐納有一種永不滿足的冒險慾望，而且進入日本的渴望——急不可耐的鎖國——牢牢的控制著他。所有的人都瞭解其中的風險，但船長不打算去遷就他們。250年來，自從江戶幕府趕走了天主教士、斷絕了貿易，唯一與荷蘭和中國的貿易也被嚴格控制並限制在南方的港口長崎，另外僅是北韓人得到另一個地方的許可。儘管英華人和俄華人的船不時捅日本的殼，1825的一紙禁令清楚的說明了這些“要求燃料、淡水和食物”的不速之客會得到怎樣的對待：
The continuation of such insolentproceedings, as also the intention of introducing the Christian religion havingcome to our knowledge, it is impossible to look on with indifference. If infuture foreign vessels should come near any port whatsoever, the localinhabitants shall conjointly drive them away; but should they go away peaceablyit is not necessary to pursue them. Should any foreigners land anywhere, theymust be arrested or killed, and if the ship approaches the shore it must bedestroyed.
似此等無禮行為，引入天主教之意圖，吾已知曉，萬不能等閒視之。若再有外國船靠近任何港口，當地居民當聯合以逐之；若其和平離去，則不必追捕。倘任何外華人意欲在任何地方登陸，須逮捕或處死，如果船隻意欲靠岸，須摧毀之。（外國船打払令）
Two decades later the despoticfeudalism of the Tokugawa shogunate was under greater strain. At home the landhad been ravaged by floods and earthquakes, and famines had driven thedispossessed and even samurai to storm the rice warehouses of the daimyo,the local lords. Abroad, Western powers were making ominous inroads. After theopium war of 1840-42 China ceded Hong Kong to Britain. Meanwhile, thanks to agrowth in whaling and trade with China, the number of distressed Westernvessels appearing along Japan’s shores was increasing. Moderate voices madethemselves heard within the government. A new edict was softer:
20年後，江戶幕府暴虐的封建專制面臨著愈來愈大的壓力。在國內，洪水和地震肆虐，赤地千里，餓殍遍野，甚至武士階級也開始掠奪大名的米倉。國外，西方勢力露出侵略的野心。1840-42年鴉片戰爭後，中國向英國放棄了香港。同時，由於捕鯨業發展和與中國貿易的增長，出現在日本海岸的遇難的外國船的數量增多。溫和派的聲音達於政府。於是，新的法令變得更加溫和：
It is not thought fitting todrive away all foreign ships irrespective of their condition, in spite of theirlack of supplies, or of their having stranded or their suffering from stress ofweather. You should, when necessary, supply them with food and fuel and advisethem to return, but on no account allow foreigners to land. If, however, afterreceiving supplies and instructions they do not withdraw, you will, of coursedrive them away.
非欲驅逐所有外國船，不考慮儘管他們缺少補給、意外擱淺或遭受惡劣天氣的情況。如果必要，汝當向其提供食物和燃料，並勸其離開，然則決不許外華人登陸。若得到供給和指示後仍不離開，汝應驅逐之。
MacDonald knew the risks, andapproached Japan obliquely in order to minimise them. Even so, he spent thenext ten months in captivity.
Ocean streams
洋流
MacDonald’scuriosity about Japanhad first been aroused as a child, with the arrival in 1834 of three Japanesecastaways. More than a year earlier a full Japanese crew had set off in theHojun-marufrom the port of Tobawith a cargo of rice and ceramics intended as annual tribute for the shogun upthe coast in Edo (modern-day Tokyo).Very quickly they were blown offshore by a sudden autumn storm. Fourteen monthslater the crippled junk and its survivors were washed ashore on Cape Flattery,in current-day Washingtonstate, along with the bales of rice and boxes of fine porcelain. A delightedband of Makah Indians seized what they could of the cargo and enslaved thesurvivors. The Hudson’sBay Company, who traded with the Makah, found the sailors and bought them.
麥克唐納最初對日本的好奇是由1834年發現的3個日本船難漂流者中的一個孩子引起的。一年多以前一艘名叫寶順丸的船滿載水手和稻米陶器等給幕府將軍的年貢駛離鳥羽港，沿海岸前往江戶（現在的東京）。很快他們被突然襲來的秋季風帶入遠洋。14個月後破船帶著倖存者和打包的大米以及成箱的精美陶器被衝上夫拉特黎角（在/位於現在的華盛頓州）的海灘。一隊印第安人將船洗劫一空並把倖存者作為了奴隸。後來同馬考族的印地安人做交易的哈德遜灣公司發現並買下了他們。
Seafarersfrom the isles of Japanhave been drifting eastwards in crippled vessels for hundreds of years, andperhaps millennia. Presumably, they mingled blood if they survived along theway—MacDonald himself felt he might be a recipient.
幾百年，也許是千年以前，日本海員就曾漂流到了美洲。倖存者甚至可能留下了血脈。麥克唐納覺得自己可能就是後裔中的一個。
Theirconveyor belt was the Kuroshio (Black) Current, named after the deep colour ofits waters. The Kuroshio is the north Pacific’s Gulf Stream, for it brings warmwater from the tropics up east of Taiwan, north-eastwards along the Japanesecoast and on towards the polar regions, sweeping east below the Aleutian islesand down the American coast (see map). To this day Japanese fishing floats andeven monks’ wooden sandals are washed up on the shores of the Pacific Northwest. Katherine Plummer in “The Shogun’s ReluctantAmbassadors: Japanese Sea Drifters in the North Pacific” (Oregon HistoricalSociety, 1991) relates the case of the ghost ship Ryoei-maru, amotorised but stricken coastal fishing boat found off Vancouver Island in 1927with the parched corpses of the crew on board and a poignant diary of theirlast days.
他們的“傳送帶”是黑潮——因其水流顏色而得名。黑潮是北太平洋的海流，它將較高溫度的海水從熱帶沿臺灣以東，指向極地向東北方透過日本沿岸，由阿留申群島向東最後到達美國沿岸（如圖）。有時日本的漁業漂浮物甚至僧侶的木屐都會被衝上西北太平洋的海岸。凱瑟琳·布朗蒙在《尷尬的將軍大使:北太平洋的日本漂流物》中寫到幽靈船良栄丸——一艘失事的摩托化近海漁船——1927年在範庫弗島被發現，船內有船員發熱的死屍和一本記載他們最後地獄生活的日記。
Sotyrannically did the Tokugawa shogunate wish to deny its subjects outside knowledgethat it was not just foreign sailors on the coast who risked punishment.Japanese sailors were not allowed to leave the country. They knew that if everthey were shipwrecked on foreign shores, then they were barred from returningto Japan.Some survivors came back regardless: sometimes a Russian ship would put themdown among the Kurile Islands in a baidarka,a local canoe, loaded with provisions; the sailor would then make his way aloneto Ezo. Others came back to Nagasaki via Chinaon Chinese junks, with the help of Western missionaries, but if execution didnot always follow, a stiff and lengthy interrogation certainly did.
由於德川幕府是如此專橫地要隔絕外界的一切進入，不只外國水手不能上岸，日本水手也不能離國。他們知道即使因船隻遇難而漂流，一旦踏上外國海岸就將被永遠驅逐。儘管如此，一些倖存者還是不顧一切地回國：有時俄羅斯船隻會在千葉群島用載有補給的小船將他們放下，水手自己想辦法劃到札幌。其餘透過西方傳教士的幫助從中國坐中國船隻回到長崎。當他們歸國，雖然不一定會被處死，但一定會受到長期嚴酷的審訊。
Tokugawaxenophobia increased the risks of wreck or drift. To prevent sailors goingabroad, shipbuilding rules restricted the seaworthiness of Japanese vessels.The coastal traders that brought grain and other tribute to Edowere in essence overloaded arks. They lacked stability. The wind caught theirhigh sterns, hampering manoeuvrability. Meanwhile, they lacked the sturdycentre-mounted rudders of Chinese junks or Western craft, and Japanese ruddersmounted to one side snapped readily in heavy seas, just when the craft mostneeded steerage.
德川家的仇外情緒增加了船隻失事的危險：為了防止水手離國，制定了船隻建造的規則來限制其航行能力。沿海岸航行的載有穀物和貢品的船隻基本上都超載。它們穩定性差，在風中缺乏機動性。它們也沒有像中國或西方船隻那樣安裝在中間的堅固的主舵。日本船的舵都偏向一邊，在大浪中易碎，這使它們無法遠航。
To reducethe risk of foundering in a storm, the crew of a rudderless craft would cutdown the mast, turning their vessel into a hulk, at the mercy of wind andwaves. The crews of such stricken ships tended to turn spiritual. In 1813,according to a later account by the captain, Jukichi, the crew of Tokujo-maru,blown off-course for Edo with a cargo of rice,cut their top-knots as an act of purification, and one crew member shaved hishead to become a monk. They prayed to Buddhist and Shinto gods (every vesselcarried a shrine), and they prepared divination papers to find out where theywere. After a year and a half of drifting, during which most of the crew died,three survivors were picked up by a British ship off the coast of California.
為了不在風暴中沉沒，別國船員會放下主桅，放棄動力而冀希望於風和海流；而日本的船員只能企求神明。日本船德山丸的船長重吉後來回憶到，在1813年，當他們在滿載稻米例行駛向江戶的途中遇難時，他剪下發髻來向神明示誠，有一個船員甚至剃了光頭出家。他們向佛教和神道教的神明祈禱（每艘船上都有神龕），透過寫有預言的紙來了解現在的位置。經過1年半的漂流，多數船員死去，3個倖存者在加利福尼亞附近被英國船隻救下。
Jukichi, reckoned to be the first recorded Japanese to land in America, returned home four yearslater, via Alaska and Kamchatka, and spent the first night in the villagetemple, as he had promised the gods. He spent the rest of his life beggingfunds for the memorial stone he had promised his crew.
作為首個有記載的登上美洲的日本人，重吉4年後透過阿拉斯加和堪察加半島回到日本。他回國第一夜一直呆在村中神社裡，正如他向神明保證的一樣。餘生他一直為修建向船員們許諾的紀念碑籌款。
Theshogunate’s hungry demand for tribute, which forced many vessels to set sailafter the autumn rice harvest, no doubt increased the number of sea-drifters:that there was a word for them, hyoryumin, attests to their number. Theplentiful supply of krill at the point where the warm waters of the Kuroshiomeet Arctic waters, which attracted whales, no doubt increased the number of hyoryuminpicked up by Western ships. A whaler from Brighton, Massachusetts, is reckoned tohave been the first in Japanese waters, in 1820, when it came upon a pod ofsperm whales. A year later 30 American ships cruised around Japan, and by1839 the number of Western whalers had grown to 550, four-fifths of themAmerican. It was off Japan,of course, that Captain Ahab lost his leg (“dismasted”) to the great whitewhale that was his nemesis, and in Herman Melville’s imagination the mysteryand danger of Moby Dick is fused with the land around which he swims.
將軍對貢品需索無度，迫使大量船隻秋收後起航，這無疑增加了漂流者的數量：他們都有了個專門的名字“漂流民”，正體現了數量之多。黑潮與北極寒流交匯，大量的磷蝦招來了鯨魚，又使捕鯨船增多，也增加了漂流者被救起的可能。1820年，馬薩諸塞州布萊頓的一艘捕鯨船在追逐抹香鯨群時首次進入了日本海域。一年後就有30艘美國捕鯨船在那裡出現。到1839年，捕鯨船的數量增加到了550艘，佔全美總數的五分之四。《白鯨記》中，就是在日本海附近，阿哈船長在與他不同戴天的仇敵大白鯨的戰鬥中失去了腿。在梅爾維爾（《白鯨記》作者）的腦海中，大白鯨“莫比迪”的神秘與危險恐怕和當時人們對日本的感覺摻雜在了一起。
As the northPacific became more crowded, some of the Japanese sea-drifters were bound tohelp unlock the double-bolted land even before Commodore Matthew Perry steamedinto Edo Bayin 1853 demanding recognition for the United States. One such wasOtokichi, the youngest of the three found enslaved near Cape Flattery. The Hudson’s Bay Companyfactor had sent the crew to London, with anotion that they might be used as a means to open up trade with Japan. Theywere then shipped to Macau, where they helped Karl Gutzlaff, an indefatigablemissionary with a Hong Kong streetstill named after him, to translate St John’s gospel into Japanese. They hoped to return to Japan in an American trader, but the vessel metwith cannon fire in Edo Bay and Kagoshima.Rebuffed, they resumed their life in Macau.
當北太平洋上越來越繁忙，一些日本漂流者也想要開啟國門，時間上甚至在那個1853年衝入江戶灣，以武力要求日美通商的馬修·佩裡將軍之前。前文所說的3個倖存者中最年輕的——山本·音吉，也是他們中的一員。哈德遜灣公司的代理人將他們送往倫敦，並提到他們可能可以在開啟日本國門的過程中發揮作用。之後他們被送往澳門，在那裡幫助不知疲倦的傳教士郭立士——香港有條街以他命名——向日本傳教。他們試圖坐美國商船回國，但在江戶灣和鹿兒島都只受到炮彈的歡迎，最後只好回到澳門。
Otokichiwent on to Shanghai to work for a British trading company, married anEnglishwoman—perhaps the first Japanese to do so—and prospered; after her deathhe married an Indian. As a British subject, John Matthew Ottoson was to returntwice to Japan, the secondtime with the Royal Navy in 1854, to act as translator during the negotiationsthat opened Japanup to British trade. He is buried in the JapaneseCemetery in Singapore.
音吉又去了上海，為一家英國貨易公司工作，娶了個英國女人——也許他是第一個娶外華人的日本人——之後事業有成；妻子死後他又娶了一個印度女人。他改用了英文名約翰·馬修·奧托森，兩次回到日本。其中的第二次是在1854年隨同皇家海軍作為翻譯參加要求日英通商的談判。他死後埋葬在新加坡的日本公墓中。
Manjiro, who made it back
歸鄉遊子，萬次郎
The most famous sea-drifter is known in the West and even Japanas John Manjiro. Two days after Melville set off in early 1841 from Fairhaven, Massachusetts,on the whaling adventure that provided the material for “Moby Dick”, Manjiro,the youngest of five crew, set out fishing near his villageof Nakanohama on the rugged south-westerncoast of Shikoku, one of Japan’sfour main islands. On the fourth day, the skipper saw black clouds looming andordered the boat to be rowed to shore. It was too late. Over two weeks theydrifted east almost 400 miles, landing on Torishima, a barren volcanic speckwhose only sustenance was brackish water lying in puddles and nesting seabirds.In late summer even the albatrosses left. After five months, while outscavenging, Manjiro saw a ship sailing towards the island.這些海上漂流者中在西方世界最出名的當屬約翰–萬次郎了（John Manjiro，又名中濱–萬次郎Nakahama Manjiro，譯註）即便是在日本他也是家喻戶曉。1841年初，就在梅爾維爾離開馬薩諸塞州的費爾黑文（Fairhaven）開始那段日後成就了《白鯨記》的捕鯨歷險後兩天，萬次郎隨同另外四名年長的同伴離開他們的村子，位於日本四大島嶼，四國島西南部崎嶇的海岸邊的中之濱町，出海打魚。他們在海上航行的第四天，舵手發現滾滾烏雲向他們壓來，急忙下令將船划向海岸。但為時已晚。此後兩週多的時間裡他們向東漂過了400英里終於在酉島上了岸，酉島是座火山噴發形成的荒蕪小島，他們只能飲水坑裡的苦鹹水捕食島上築巢的海鳥充飢。而到了夏末，連信天翁都離開了小島。就這樣在島上度過了五個月，外出覓食的萬次郎看到了一艘船向小島駛來。
The castaways’ saviour, William Whitfield, captain of theJohnHowland, a Fairhavenwhaler, took a shine to the sparky lad. In Honoluluhe asked Manjiro if he wanted to carry on to Fairhaven. The boy did, studied at Bartlett’s Academy, whichtaught maths and navigation to its boys, went to church and fell for localgirls. He later signed on for a three-year whaling voyage to the Pacific, andwhen he returned, joined a lumber ship bound round Cape Horn for San Francisco and the California gold rush. He made a handsome sumand found passage back to Honolulu.這五位日本魯濱遜們的救星，來自Fairhaven的捕鯨船，約翰–霍蘭號（John Howland）的船長William Whitfield，給這個聰明的年輕人帶來了全新的人生。當他們抵達火奴魯魯後，船長問萬次郎，是否願意隨他們前往費爾黑文。他同意了，此後他在教授數學和航海的Bartlett’s學院學習和當地人一樣去教堂禮拜，與當地的女孩墜入情網。再後來，他簽約重返太平洋參加了一次歷時三年的捕鯨遠航，返航之後他又登上一艘木材運輸船繞過霍恩角（Cape Horn）前往舊金山，加入了加州的淘金大軍。
By early 1851—the year of “Moby Dick” and two years beforeCommodore Perry turned up—Manjiro was at last back in Japan, and things were alreadychanging. He and two of the original crew had been dropped in their opensailing boat by an American whaling ship off the Ryukyu Islands. They were taken to Kagoshima,seat of the Satsuma clan. The local daimyo, Shimazu Nariakira, grilledManjiro, but the tone was inquisitive more than inquisitorial: please toexplain the steamship, trains, photography, etc. In Nagasaki, Manjiro had to trample on an imageof the Virgin and child. He was asked whether the katsurabush could beseen from Americagrowing on the moon. He described America’s system of government, themodest living of the president and how New Englanders were so industrious thatthey used their time on the lavatory to read. Amazingly, he dared criticiseJapan’s ill-treatment of foreign ships in need of wood and water, and made aheartfelt plea for the opening of Japan, going so far as to put the Americancase for a coal-bunkering station in Japan to allow steamships to cross thePacific from California to China.1851年《白鯨記》面世距佩裡准將到達日本還有兩年，這年年初萬次郎終於回到了日本，滄海桑田變革之風已經吹進了他的國家。在琉球外海，一艘美國捕鯨船放下了他和兩名當年的同伴乘坐的小船。他們被帶到了薩摩藩的領地鹿兒島。當地的大名島津齊彬問了萬次郎很多問題，讓他介紹諸如蒸汽船、火車、照片等神奇的事物，題問是友好的充滿了好奇，並沒有盤查的意思。不過，在長崎，萬次郎被迫用腳踩踏一幅聖母和耶穌的畫像。人們問他在美國能不能看到月亮上的桂樹。他向人們描述了美國的政治體系，總統制下的優越生活以及新英格蘭人民的社會如何的工業化以至於連上廁所的時間都被利用起來讀書讀報。讓人驚訝的是他敢於批評日本政府，指責其慢待了了途經日本期望補充木材和淡水的外國船隻，他也真心希望日本能夠開放，甚至於打算讓美國在日本興建一個補充煤炭的燃料站，以使蒸汽船能夠從加州出發橫跨太平洋到達中國。
Rather than being kept in prison, he was freed to visit hismother—in Nakanohana she showed him his memorial stone—and was even made asamurai. In Tosa (modern-day Kochi),he taught English to men who were later influential during the overthrow of theshogunate and the establishment of constitutional government in the Meiji period,from 1860. During negotiations in 1854 with Perry, Manjiro acted as aninterpreter. Later, in 1860, he joined the first Japanese embassy to America. But asChristopher Benfey explains in “The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, JapaneseEccentrics and the Opening of Old Japan” (Random House, 2003), if the terror ofbeing lost at sea was the defining experience of Manjiro’s life, then hisgreatest gift to the Japanese was his translation of Nathaniel Bowditch’s “TheNew American Practical Navigator”, known to generations of mariners as the“seaman’s bible”.幕府並沒有逮捕萬次郎，並允許他去探望自己的母親——在中之濱，母親帶著萬次郎去看了他的墓碑——幕府還冊封他為武士。他在土佐（現在的高知）教授英語，學生中不乏在後來推翻幕府統制頗具影響的人物，1860年起他又擔任了明治立憲政府的官員。1854年幕府與佩裡談判時他是翻譯之一。此後，他於1860年成為了第一批日本駐美外交使團的一員。不過，正如ChristopherBenfey在他的《大潮洶湧：鍍金年代的異類、日本的離經叛道者與舊日本的開放》（蘭登書屋2003年版）一書中所說的，如果說怒海迷航的恐怖經歷成就了萬次郎的人生，那麼他帶給日本最大的禮物則是他所翻譯的，由Nathaniel Bowditch撰寫被水手們稱為“海員聖經”的《新美國航海實用手冊》一書。
As for Ranald MacDonald, though he was handed over by the Ainu andtaken by junk to Nagasakifor interrogation, he was treated decently. With a respectable education and agentle presence, he was clearly a cut above the usual rough-necked castaway,and he was put to teaching English. Some of the students who came to his celllater flourished as interpreters and compilers of dictionaries. The mostnotable, Einosuke Moriyama, served as the chief translator in Japan’s negotiations with Perry, as well asinterpreter to America’sfirst consul to Japan,Townsend Harris.至於羅納德–邁克唐納（Ranald MacDonald），雖然阿依努人將他移交給了政府，然後他又被用帆船送往長崎接受詢問，但日本人待他還是很友好的。由於受過良好教育、舉止優雅，他與通常那些粗鄙的落水者們形成了強烈的反差，人們讓他去教授英語。他的學生中有一些後來成為了優秀的翻譯家和字典的編撰者。其中最著名的莫過於森山榮之助，他是日本與佩裡談判時的首席翻譯官，還擔任了美國第一任駐日領事Townsend Harris的翻譯。
In the spring of 1849 the American warship Preble arrivedin Nagasaki,its commander, James Glynn, ignoring the imprecations from assorted Japanesecraft to “go away, go away”. The American government had heard that the Lagoda,an American whaler, had been wrecked on the Japanese coast and a number of crewtaken prisoner. (Historians now think the crew, whose numbers had diminished inprison through sickness and a suicide, were deserters.) ThePreble wasdispatched from Hong Kong to rescue them, the government thinking no doubt thiswas also a useful exercise in testing Japan’s exclusionary resolve. ToGlynn’s surprise, he learnt that MacDonald, who had been presumed dead, wasalso in Nagasaki.The Preble carried the exultant adventurer to Macau, where he promptlysigned on a ship that took him to Australia’s goldfields.1849年春，美國戰艦Preble號在船長James Glynn的指揮下駛入長崎，雖然能聽到岸上的人對他們怒吼，說者各種他們聽不懂的日語到“滾開、滾開”的英語，但他們充耳不聞。美國政府聽說，一艘名為Lagoda號的美國捕鯨船在日本海岸附近失事，多名船員被囚禁。（歷史學家現在認為，這些船員是逃兵，在押期間，由於疾病和自殺，他們的人數有所減少。）Preble號由香港出發前往營救他們，美國政府無疑也是企圖透過這次行動來檢驗日本的軍事戒備狀況。Glynn萬萬沒有想到的是，他聽說那個早被認定已經死亡的邁克唐納也在長崎。Preble號將這位探險家帶往澳門，他為此欣喜若狂，之後他在那裡搭上一艘船去了澳洲的金礦。
A secret no more
神秘面紗今不再
Very soon after, Japanopened to the world. Its adoption of industrialisation and Westernconstitutional government was perhaps the most abrupt transformation of acountry in history. That is well recorded. Less noticed was the change tosailors around Japan’scoasts. Yet St John, the British explorer,relates a foreign shipwreck on Hokkaido justtwo decades after MacDonald left Nagasaki.The captain of the Eliza Corry was found by locals close to death on theshore. In short order, they made European clothes for him, even finding him awide-awake hat. A table, fork and small and large spoon were fashioned for him,while a junk, dispatched in a hurry, returned with three Californian apples andthree sheets of foreign notepaper to complete his contentment.此後沒有多久，日本向世界敞開了它的大門。它很快就接受了工業化以及西方式的立憲政府，這恐怕是歷史上最快的一次國家轉型，因而廣為人知。很少有人知道的是這一變革對航行在日本海岸附近的水手們產生的影響。英國探險家約翰爵士（St John）講述了邁克唐納離開長崎二十年後北海道附近一位外國海難倖存者的經歷。當地在海岸上發現Eliza Corry號的船長時他已經奄奄一息了。他們沒花多少時間就給他找來了歐洲式樣的衣服，甚至還有一頂闊邊呢帽（就是常見的那種圓筒形有圓邊的帽子，譯註）。在他的要求下人們找來了一張餐桌還有叉子和大大小小的勺子，還有一艘帆船急匆匆地起航給他帶回了三個加州產的蘋果以及三長外中國產的筆記紙。
As for whaling around Japan, vestigial echoesreverberate. Every northern winter, Japan faces barbs for sending awhaling fleet into Antarctic waters. And why, asks the mayor of Taiji, a smallwhaling port, should Japanese ships have to go so far, suffering internationaloutrage? Because, he says, answering his own question, the Americans fished outall the Japanese whales in the century before last.時至今日捕鯨業仍未在日本絕跡。每年北半球冬季時節，日本會因為向南極海域派遣捕鯨船而面臨人們的嘲諷。從事捕鯨業的港口小城太地的市長反問我們，為什麼日本捕鯨船不得不冒著全世界的憤怒遠涉重洋呢？對此他自問自答道，還不是因為美華人早在兩個世界前就把日本所有的鯨魚給捕了個精光嘛。