very successfully played the part of proprietor and showman of a veritable
mermaid, during the years 1822-’23, thus settling a disputed question in
natural history and filling his pockets at the same time. We are inclined to
think that this is the identical mermaid which graoes the collection at the
New York Museum; if it he not, then our Japan fisherman furnished the
parent, (so ingeniously made as to elude detection,) from which was horn
the Eee-jee prodigy.
But another more remakable and far more creditable instanoe of the
ingenuity and talent of a Japanese fisherman is related in the Dutch annals
of Dezima. I t ocourred during the presidency of M. Doeff. The Dutch at
Batavia, during the war, feared the English cruisers too much to send one of
their own ships on the annual voyage to Japan. They therefore more than
once hired American vessels. One of these having taken in at Dezima the
usual cargo of copper and camphor, as she set sail in the night, struck upon
a rook in the harborj filled and sunk. The crew reaohed the shore in boats,
and the authorities of Nagasaki, the Dutch factory, and the American oap-
tain, were all alike concerned to devise means of raising the vessel. Japanese
divers were sent down to fetoh up the copper, hut the camphor had
dissolved, and the effluvia thus disengaged cost two of the divers their lives.
The idea of unloading her was then abandoned. Efforts were then made to
raise her as she was, hut without success. A simple fisherman named Kiye-
mon, who now perhaps for the first time in his life saw an European-built
ship, for he did not live in Nagasaki, promised to raise the ship, provided
his mere expenses in doing it were paid; if he did not succeed he asked
nothing. He was laughed at by the people for his presumption, hut, as the
case was hopeless, those interested permitted him to make the attempt. At
low tide he fastened on either side of the vessel fifteen or seventeen boats,
such aB those by which the Dutch ships are towed in, and connected them all
together firmly by props and stays. He then waited for a spring tide, when
he came in a Japanese coasting vessel, whioh he attached firmly to the stern
of the sunken ship, and at the moment when the tide was highest, he set
every sail of every boat. The sunken vessel was lifted, disengaged herself
from the roek, and ways towed by the fisherman to the strand, where she
could he unloaded and repaired. Eraissinet says he was handsomely rewarded
for this. The reader will he amused to learn that his reward consisted in
being allowed to wear two sabres, (which is the badge of elevated rank,) and
to bear as his coat of arms a Dutch hat and two Dutch tobacco pipes. We
have never read in any narrative of the oircumstanoe that he received any
rrumey with whioh to support his rank. The Dutohmen and the American
captain should have furnished that. I f the oiroumstances had been changed,
and either Hollander or Yankee had raised the vessel for the Japanese, it
would have been very soon intimated to the natives that two swords with a
picture of a Dutch hat and two tobacoo pipes afforded very inadequate oompensation
for such a valuable service. We think it would scarcely have
satisfied the Japanese mermaid maker, had he been the fortunate fisherman
instead of the modest Kiyemon.
Medicine.—All the writers on Japan agree in the statement that on the
visit of the Dutch president to Jeddo, his European physician, who accompanies
him, is always visited by the native physioians, and closely questioned
on points purely professional. Their object is to gain information. But
they already know something. They have not, however, availed themselves
at all of post mortem examinations, either to investigate disease or to study
anatomy. We cannot suppose they are without opportunities of thus acquiring
knowledge, for we read that after a criminal is executed it is not uncommon
for his body to be hacked in pieces by the young nobility, that they
may try the temper and edge of their sword blades. But superstition is in
the way. To come into contact with death is deemed pollution. Without
such examinations, it is obvious that the knowledge of the physioian and
surgeon must he but .imperfect at best.
There are, however, in Japan, original medical works constantly appearing,
and translations are also made of all such as they can obtain in the
Dutch language, whioh they best understand. The European medical gentlemen,
who have come in contact with their professional brethren of Japan,
report favorably of them; and Dr. Siebold speaks with high praise of the
zeal with which the native physicians thronged around him, from all parts
of the Empire, seeking to enlarge the stores of their knowledge. He bears
testimony also to their intelligence, as evinced by the questions they asked.
Aoupuncture and moxa burning are both used in J apan and are native inventions.
They have an original treatise on the first, and the proper oases for
its use. Their drugs are mostly animal and vegetable; they are too little
acquainted with chemistry to venture upon mineral remedies. They study
medioal botany, however, with great attention, and their remedies are said
to he generally effioacious. Some of their medicinal preparations are very
remarkable, produoing most singular effects. Of these there is one spoken
of by Titsingh, who saw its application and its consequences; and from some
of the officers of our own expedition we have heard of this preparation, of
which, we believe, they have brought home speoimens. Titsingh thus writes:
“ Instead of enclosing the bodies of the dead in coffins of a length and
breadth proportionate to the Btature and hulk of the deceased, they plaoe
the body in a tub, three feet high, two feet and a half in diameter at the top,
and two feet at bottom. I t is difficult to oonoeive how the body of a grown
person can be oompressed into so small a space, when the limbs, rendered
rigid by death, cannot be bent in any way. The Japanese, to whom I made
this observation, told me that they produced the result by means of a particular
powder called Dosia. whioh they introduce into the ears, nostrils, and
mouth of the deoeased, after which, the limbs, all at onoe, aoquire astonish