Not until thirty days after the prince’s birth was he taken to the palace to see his father. Before he set out, a white line was drawn across the hairline of his forehead, then dotted with mascara. Under it was written in rouge the character for dog, an example of protective magic.

Life inside the palace fell increasingly behind life elsewhere in Japan. Traditional rites were performed exactly as in the past, and they, rather than modern medicine, were used to cure illness. Although the efficacy of vaccination against smallpox had become fairly well known elsewhere in Japan, and Meiji as a small boy was secretly vaccinated,13

The extinguishing of household fires was probably in keeping with the belief that even fire was polluted by being in the same house where a birth had occurred. It is curious that the new fire came from a merchant’s house rather than from a shrine or the monastic retreat of some member of the imperial family, but the Kawabata family had enjoyed spec

His orders had initially called for him to proceed to Edo and conduct negotiations there, but the Russian government later decided it would be better to show respect for Japanese law by proceeding to Nagasaki, the port designated for intercourse with foreign countries, in this way establishing a contrast with the Americans, who had brazenly sailed

Harris warned that if war broke out with England, Japan would lose. Finally, he promised that if Japan signed a treaty with the United States, the latter would include a guarantee to prohibit the sale of opium, in this way distinguishing America from England.

In accordance with custom, the baby’s clothes were white, decorated also in white with the usual felicitous designs of pines, bamboo, cranes, and tortoises. On the 101st day after the birth, the white would be replaced with colors.

On December 7, 1857, the shogun Tokugawa Iesada granted Harris an audience in the Hall of State Ceremonies.

Even during these hectic days there were occasional agreeable interludes. In the eleventh month of 1857, Sachinomiya, in his sixth year, composed a poem,27 the first of his 100,000 tanka.

President Franklin Pierce