LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

39/372

DESCRIPTION OF HIS PRINCE. 23 He selected a few promising young men out of his own retainers and sent them to a military school just established under the auspices of the Shogun's gov­ernment. He gave out an order to his retainers and compelled every one of them, except some aged ones, to take lessons in sword-fencing and horseback riding. :Furthermore, he established a Chinese school and made education compulsory to his younger subjects. As he was subject to excessive drinking, and was very fond of giving costly gifts to his favorite friends and subjects in his younger days, he found his treasury almost empty when he came to equip his retainers with foreign arms. There was no other way for him to procure money than to impose an extra duty on the farmers and merchants living in his dominions, for purchasing cannon and muskets of the European model, just introduced to the country by the Holland­ers. He confiscated all the bronze bells from the Buddhist temples found in his dominion, and cast a number of the field-pieces and mortars out of them. By making such an extraordinary effort he was ena­bled to provide a sufficient number of cannon and muskets of the new model for the use of all his retain­ers. Accepting the order of the prince, I began to go to riding and fencing schools at the eleventh year of my age. I did not enjoy the horseback riding so much as I did the sword-exercise. Horses were not well trained ; some of them were just ugly as can be, and I was often carried on their backs instead of riding upon them. "At the age of fourteen I gave up these exercises and devoted myself closely to the study of the Chinese classics. Just about this time my prince invited a native scholar (Dr. Sugita], who was well versed in

※このページを正しく表示するにはFlashPlayer10.2以上が必要です