On the twenty-sixth day of the eleventh month of the first year of Genji (Dec. 25, 1864), the followers of the daimyō of Kaga, who had been engaged in the safeguarding of Kyōto, put to sea under the leadership of Chō Osumi-no-kami, from the mouth of the Ajikawa in Ōsaka, to take part in the impending chastisement of Chōshū. There were two sub-commanders, Tsukuda Kyudayu and Yamagishi Sanjurō, and white standards were set up in Tsukuda’s boats and red in Yamagishi’s. History records that it was a most brave scene as their Kompira vessels, each of 500 koku burden, left the estuary for the deep, all with their red and white banners flapping in the wind. But the men in the boats did not feel at all gallant. In the first place, every boat was loaded with thirty-four of the party and four sailors, a total of thirty-eight men. Wherefore, they were so closely packed together that free movement was impossible. Moreover, in the waist of each vessel stood so many loach tubs full of pickled radishes that there was almost no place left to step. Until they got used to it, the evil odor of the things filled every man who breathed it with a sudden nausea. Finally, as it was the end of the eleventh month of the old [Pg 60]calendar (December), the wind blowing on the sea was so cold that it seemed to fairly cut their flesh. Especially when the sun had set, what with the winds blowing down from Maya and the chill of the sea, the teeth of most even of these young samurai from the north chattered. Moreover, in the boats there was an abundance of lice. And they were not the simple sort of lice that hide themselves in the seams of garments. They swarmed upon the sails. They swarmed upon the masts. They swarmed upon the anchors. To exaggerate slightly, it was hard to tell whether the boats were for men or for lice. Of course in such a plethora, scores of the pests swarmed upon their clothes. And whenever they so much as touched the skin of a man, they were straightway elated and fell to till he tingled. Had there been but some five or ten of the vermin, they might somehow or other have been brought under control, but since, as already stated, there were so many that they looked like a sprinkling of white sesame, there was no possible hope of cleaning them out. Wherefore, in the Tsukuda party and the Yamagishi party alike, the bodies of all the samurai in the boats swelled red with bites all over on breast and abdomen and everywhere, just as if they had the measles. But impossible as it was to bring the lice under control, it was still more impossible to let them go on unmolested. So the people in the boats spent their leisure time hunting. All of them, from the chief retainers to the sandal bearers, stripped themselves and went about, each with a teacup, picking up the ubiquitous lice and [Pg 61]putting them into it. Were he to imagine thirty-odd samurai, each dressed in but a loin-cloth, with his teacup in his hand, searching with all his might here and there under the rigging and beneath the anchor in each Kompira boat with sails alight in the winter sunshine of the Inland Sea, any man in these days would at once think it a great joke, but it was no less true before the Restoration than it is now that in the face of necessity everything becomes serious. So these boats full of naked samurai, each one himself like a great louse, abode the cold and went about patiently day after day diligently crushing the lice on the decks. II But there was one odd fellow on the Tsukuda boat. He was an eccentric middle-aged man named Mori Gonnoshin, an officer of foot with an allowance of seventy bales of rice and rations for five men. Strangely this man alone did not catch lice. Therefore, of course, he was covered with them all over. While some mounted to the knot on his queued hair, others crossed over on the edge of the plate at the back of his divided skirt. Yet he paid no special attention to them. Then if you think that this man alone was not bitten by the lice, still you are mistaken. Just like the rest, he was covered with so many red blotches all over his body that he might well be described as spotted with coins. Moreover, from the way he scratched them, it did not look as if they were itchless. But no matter whether they itched or what they did, he affected utter indifference. [Pg 62] If it had all been affectation, it would not have been so strange, but when he saw the others diligently gathering lice, he called to them, “If you catch ’em, don’t kill ’em. Put ’em in teacups alive, an’ I’ll take ’em.” “When you get ’em, what’ll you do with ’em?” asked one of his fellows, with a look of surprise. “When I get ’em? Then I’ll go so far as to raise ’em,” Mori calmly replied. “Then we’ll take ’em alive and give ’em to you.” The officer, because he thought it a joke, worked half a day with two or three others and collected several cupfuls of living lice. He thought in his heart that if he handed them over thus and said, “Well, raise ’em,” even Mori, despite his contrariness, would be stumped. Then, before he had time to utter a word, Mori spoke up and said, “You’ve got ’em, haven’t you? Then I’ll take ’em.” His fellows were all taken aback. “Then put ’em in here,” said Mori calmly, opening the neck of his garment. “Don’t go makin’ yourself put up with it now and afterwards gettin’ into trouble for it,” said the others, but he would not listen. Then one at a time, they turned their teacups upside down, like ricemen measuring rice in half-gallon measures, and poured the lice down Mori’s neck, whereupon he, maintaining his composure and carefully picking up those that had spilled outside, said, as if to himself, “Thanks. With these I can sleep warm from this [Pg 63]night on.” “When you have lice, is it warm?” said the dumbfounded officers to nobody in particular, all looking into each other’s faces. Then Mori, adjusting with particularity the neck of his dress which had received the lice, gave one triumphant look around at each of their faces and proceeded to express himself to this effect: “Each and every one of you caught cold in this recent snap, but what of this Gonnoshin? He doesn’t sneeze. He doesn’t run at the nose. More, not once has he felt feverish or cold in the hands or feet. Whose good work do you s’pose this is? It’s all the good work of the lice.” According to Mori’s explanation, it seems that when there are lice on the body, they are bound to bite and make it itch. When they bite, one is sure to want to scratch. Then, when the whole body is bitten all over, one wants to scratch all over the whole body, too. But man is wonderfully made, so that while he scratches where he feels himself itch, the scratched places naturally get warm as with a fever. Then, when he is warm, he gets sleepy. When he is sleepy, he no longer feels the itch. In this way, if one but have many lice on one’s body, one falls asleep easily and catches no colds. Wherefore, we should by all means keep lice and by no means kill them out. “Sure enough, it’s like that, ain’t it?” said several of his fellows approvingly when they had heard Mori’s argument. [Pg 64] III After that there came to be a group in that boat that followed the example of Mori and kept lice. In the matter of going about in pursuit of lice whenever they had leisure, this group was not different from the rest of the party. The only difference was that all they caught, they put one by one faithfully into their bosoms and carefully kept. But it is seldom in any country in any age that the precursor’s teaching is accepted in its first form by all the people. In this boat, too, there were many Pharisees who set themselves up against Mori’s doctrines on lice. At the forefront of these stood a captain of foot called Inoue Tenzo. He, too, was an eccentric, and he always ate all the lice he caught. When he had finished his evening meal, he would place a teacup before him and sit slowly munching something that was evidently delicious, so somebody looked into the cup and saw that it was full of the lice he had caught and asked, “What do they taste like?” “Let’s see. Like oily parched rice, I guess,” said he. Those who use their mouths to crush lice are to be found everywhere, but this man was not of their number. As light refreshment pure and simple, he ate them every day. He was the first to oppose Mori. There was not another soul who took after Inoue and ate lice, but a considerable number joined him in his opposition. According to them, men’s bodies certainly could not be warmed by the presence of lice. Moreover, [Pg 65]in the Book of Filial Piety, it is written that we receive our bodies, hair and hide, from our fathers and mothers, and the very beginning of filial duty lies in not injuring them. Of one’s own choice to feed these bodies to such things as lice was egregiously unfilial. Whence lice should by all means be hunted out. They should not be raised. Under these circumstances, disputes arose from time to time between the Mori and Inoue groups. And so long as they simply ended in argument, there was no harm. But in the end things developed unexpectedly from such beginnings even unto the starting of an appeal to the sword. It came about in this way. One day Mori received from the others a lot of lice which he put into a teacup and set aside, intending to raise them carefully as usual, when Inoue, taking advantage of his incaution, ate them up before he noticed. When Mori came to look for them, there was not one left. Then this precursor flared into anger. “What’d you eat ’em for?” he demanded, edging up to Inoue with his arms akimbo and his eyes blazing. “Fact is, it’s idiotic to keep lice,” said Inoue indifferently, showing absolutely no desire to take him up. “It’s idiotic to eat ’em.” Mori flew into a fury and, pounding the plank deck shouted, “Look here! Is there anybody in this ship who isn’t indebted to lice? Takin’ these lice an’ eatin’ ’em is just like payin’ kindness with hate!” [Pg 66] “I haven’t the least recollection of ever receivin’ any favor from lice.” “Nay, even if you haven’t, to wantonly take the lives of livin’ things is unspeakable.” After two or three more remarks had been exchanged with increasing vehemence, Mori suddenly saw red and put his hand on the hilt of his maroon-sheathed sword. Of course Inoue did not back down. He quickly snatched up his long blade in its cinnabar scabbard and sprang to his feet. Had not the naked men who were going about catching lice excitedly forced the two apart, it would probably have meant the life of one or the other of them. According to the story of one who saw this flurry with his own eyes, the two men, held fast in the arms of the whole party, still foamed at the mouth and shouted, “Lice—⁠Lice—⁠” IV And while the samurai in the ships thus came almost to bloodshed over the lice, the 500-koku Kompira vessels, as if alone indifferent utterly to all this, ran on farther and farther west with their red and white banners flapping in the cold wind under the snowy sky on the long, long road leading to the chastisement of Chōshū.