[2007.12.19]When Japan was a secret

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这篇文章是sparker、pyxf和我合作完成的翻译，sparker和pyxf都很快完成了他们负责的部分，而我因为有些急办的私事，耽误了翻译的进度，而且这篇文章对我的确有些难，我的那一部分迟迟未能脱稿，知道今天我们三个的工作才能整和到一起，贴到论坛上。本来是我牵的头，却搞成这样，在这里向sparker和pyxf表示道歉。

我们是这样分派的，Ocean streams一节是由pyxf翻译的，Manjiro, who made it back和A secret no more是由sparker完成的，其余的部分是由我翻译的。

这篇文章的历史或许很少人了解——我们自己的历史尚且很粗糙，何况是日本的历史呢？文章所覆盖的时间大约是十八世纪中期，在倒幕运动和明治维新之前，我们现在讲中国近代史都是从中英鸦片战争起算，古代史一般是讲到康乾盛世，二者之间的历史很少提到。嘉庆在位是从1796年到1820年，道光在位从1821年到1851年，所以，文中提到的日本史，几乎可以和道光年间对应。

年谱

1825年，外国船打弗令颁布
1848年，麦克唐纳到达日本
1851年，《白鲸记》出版
1853年，黑船事件

Christmas Specials

Japanese sea-drifters

When Japan was a secret

那时，日本还是个秘密

Dec 19th 2007 | NAKANOHAMA ANDRISHIRI ISLAND

Long before Commodore Perry gotthere, Japanese castaways and American whalers were prising Japan open

远早于佩里准将到那儿，日本漂流者和美国捕鲸人已经撬开了日本的大门

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

就说那一向闭关锁国的日本吧，它的开放可以说应该完全归功于捕鲸船，是捕鲸船开到了它的大门口，把外面世界的文明带给了它。

赫尔曼·梅尔维尔，《白鲸记》，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.

乘着小型帆船，第一位来到日本的英文老师登上这片土地，但在这之前，Ranald MacDonald从他的船上拔出塞子，造成船半沉的假象，希望通过他编造的故事——他从一个残暴专治的捕鲸船长手中逃出来又遇到了海难——来赢得当地人的信任。4个当地人驾船靠过来，尽管他们理所当然的感到惊奇，却还是彬彬有礼，他们深深的鞠躬，捋着长长的胡子，吐着嘶哑的喉音。“How do you do?”MacDonald爽快的回答。这次相见发生在1848年7月1日，北海道利尻岛的Nutsuka湾上，这位通信者从小捕鱼船之间挑选了一块深黑色的玄武岩作为他书写时的桌子，至今，这块岩石仍在海湾的岸上。

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.

利尻岛大约9英里宽，是个近乎圆形的火山岛，圆得小孩子也画得出来。它远在日本北部：如果爬上火山山顶，刚好看得见俄国的库页岛的海岸。MacDonald故意偏离航线，靠近闭关锁国的日本。当然，靠近麦克唐纳的当地居民并不是日本人，而是多毛的阿伊努人——女人则在上唇纹身。

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区的原住民，在库页岛和堪察加半岛也定居着与他们有关系的部落。一个19世纪英国探险者和海军船长，亨利克莱文圣约翰，称皮肤白皙的阿伊努人为“如同滴落在大洋上的不可思议的油，被蒙古人（包括日本人）环绕，却又不是其中的一员。”但正如欧洲移民正将美国的边界向西部推移——麦克唐纳自己出生在今天莱文公主（奇努克王宠爱的女儿）和苏格兰皮毛贸易商的俄勒冈州——日本人也向北推进。今天的北海道从前称为札幌，字面上暗示着野蛮与残忍。现在，只有退化的阿伊努族群还幸存下来。

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”:

麦克唐纳并非从一个暴君手中逃走，事实上，他不得不恳求普利茅斯的对此甚有兴趣的一位从纽约赛格港出海的捕鲸船的船长把他带到日本近海。麦克唐纳有一种永不满足的冒险欲望，而且进入日本的渴望——急不可耐的锁国——牢牢的控制着他。所有的人都了解其中的风险，但船长不打算去迁就他们。250年来，自从江户幕府赶走了天主教士、断绝了贸易，唯一与荷兰和中国的贸易也被严格控制并限制在南方的港口长崎，另外仅是朝鲜人得到另一个地方的许可。尽管英国人和俄国人的船不时捅日本的壳，1825的一纸禁令清楚的说明了这些“要求燃料、淡水和食物”的不速之客会得到怎样的对待：

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.

似此等无礼行为，引入天主教之意图，吾已知晓，万不能等闲视之。若再有外国船靠近任何港口，当地居民当联合以逐之；若其和平离去，则不必追捕。倘任何外国人意欲在任何地方登陆，须逮捕或处死，如果船只意欲靠岸，须摧毁之。（外国船打払令）

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年后，江户幕府暴虐的封建专制面临着愈来愈大的压力。在国内，洪水和地震肆虐，赤地千里，饿殍遍野，甚至武士阶级也开始掠夺大名的米仓。国外，西方势力露出侵略的野心。1840-42年鸦片战争后，中国向英国放弃了香港。同时，由于捕鲸业发展和与中国贸易的增长，出现在日本海岸的遇难的外国船的数量增多。温和派的声音达于政府。于是，新的法令变得更加温和：

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.

非欲驱逐所有外国船，不考虑尽管他们缺少补给、意外搁浅或遭受恶劣天气的情况。如果必要，汝当向其提供食物和燃料，并劝其离开，然则决不许外国人登陆。若得到供给和指示后仍不离开，汝应驱逐之。

 

MacDonald knew the risks, andapproached Japan obliquely in order to minimise them. Even so, he spent thenext ten months in captivity.

麦克唐纳清楚其中的风险，他从不直接靠近日本人，希望能保证他自己的安全，尽管小心翼翼地，但他还是被囚禁了十个月。

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 the Hojun-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.

麦克唐纳最初对日本的好奇是由1834年发现的3个日本船难漂流者中的一个孩子引起的。一年多以前一艘名叫宝顺丸的船满载水手和稻米陶器等给幕府将军的年贡驶离鸟羽港，沿海岸前往江户（现在的东京）。很快他们被突然袭来的秋季风带入远洋。14个月后破船带着幸存者和打包的大米以及成箱的精美陶器被冲上夫拉特黎角（在/位于现在的华盛顿州）的海滩。一队印第安人将船洗劫一空并把幸存者作为了奴隶。后来同马考族的印地安人做交易的哈德逊湾公司发现并买下了他们。

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.

几百年，也许是千年以前，日本海员就曾漂流到了美洲。幸存者甚至可能留下了血脉。麦克唐纳觉得自己可能就是后裔中的一个。

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.

他们的“传送带”是黑潮——因其水流颜色而得名。黑潮是北太平洋的海流，它将较高温度的海水从热带沿台湾以东，指向极地向东北方通过日本沿岸，由阿留申群岛向东最后到达美国沿岸（如图）。有时日本的渔业漂浮物甚至僧侣的木屐都会被冲上西北太平洋的海岸。凯瑟琳·布朗蒙在《尴尬的将军大使:北太平洋的日本漂流物》中写到幽灵船良栄丸——一艘失事的摩托化近海渔船——1927年在范库弗岛被发现，船内有船员发热的死尸和一本记载他们最后地狱生活的日记。

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.

由于德川幕府是如此专横地要隔绝外界的一切进入，不只外国水手不能上岸，日本水手也不能离国。他们知道即使因船只遇难而漂流，一旦踏上外国海岸就将被永远驱逐。尽管如此，一些幸存者还是不顾一切地回国：有时俄罗斯船只会在千叶群岛用载有补给的小船将他们放下，水手自己想办法划到札幌。其余通过西方传教士的帮助从中国坐中国船只回到长崎。当他们归国，虽然不一定会被处死，但一定会受到长期严酷的审讯。

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.

德川家的仇外情绪增加了船只失事的危险：为了防止水手离国，制定了船只建造的规则来限制其航行能力。沿海岸航行的载有谷物和贡品的船只基本上都超载。它们稳定性差，在风中缺乏机动性。它们也没有像中国或西方船只那样安装在中间的坚固的主舵。日本船的舵都偏向一边，在大浪中易碎，这使它们无法远航。

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.

为了不在风暴中沉没，别国船员会放下主桅，放弃动力而冀希望于风和海流；而日本的船员只能企求神明。日本船德山丸的船长重吉后来回忆到，在1813年，当他们在满载稻米例行驶向江户的途中遇难时，他剪下发髻来向神明示诚，有一个船员甚至剃了光头出家。他们向佛教和神道教的神明祈祷（每艘船上都有神龛），通过写有预言的纸来了解现在的位置。经过1年半的漂流，多数船员死去，3个幸存者在加利福尼亚附近被英国船只救下。

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.

作为首个有记载的登上美洲的日本人，重吉4年后通过阿拉斯加和堪察加半岛回到日本。他回国第一夜一直呆在村中神社里，正如他向神明保证的一样。余生他一直为修建向船员们许诺的纪念碑筹款。

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.

将军对贡品需索无度，迫使大量船只秋收后起航，这无疑增加了漂流者的数量：他们都有了个专门的名字“漂流民”，正体现了数量之多。黑潮与北极寒流交汇，大量的磷虾招来了鲸鱼，又使捕鲸船增多，也增加了漂流者被救起的可能。1820年，马萨诸塞州布莱顿的一艘捕鲸船在追逐抹香鲸群时首次进入了日本海域。一年后就有30艘美国捕鲸船在那里出现。到1839年，捕鲸船的数量增加到了550艘，占全美总数的五分之四。《白鲸记》中，就是在日本海附近，阿哈船长在与他不同戴天的仇敌大白鲸的战斗中失去了腿。在梅尔维尔（《白鲸记》作者）的脑海中，大白鲸“莫比迪”的神秘与危险恐怕和当时人们对日本的感觉掺杂在了一起。

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.

当北太平洋上越来越繁忙，一些日本漂流者也想要打开国门，时间上甚至在那个1853年冲入江户湾，以武力要求日美通商的马修·佩里将军之前。前文所说的3个幸存者中最年轻的——山本·音吉，也是他们中的一员。哈德逊湾公司的代理人将他们送往伦敦，并提到他们可能可以在打开日本国门的过程中发挥作用。之后他们被送往澳门，在那里帮助不知疲倦的传教士郭立士——香港有条街以他命名——向日本传教。他们试图坐美国商船回国，但在江户湾和鹿儿岛都只受到炮弹的欢迎，最后只好回到澳门。

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，为一家英国货易公司工作，娶了个英国女人——也许他是第一个娶外国人的日本人——之后事业有成；妻子死后他又娶了一个印度女人。他改用了英文名约翰·马修·奥托森，两次回到日本。其中的第二次是在1854年随同皇家海军作为翻译参加要求日英通商的谈判。他死后埋葬在新加坡的日本公墓中。

Manjiro, who made it back

归乡游子，万次郎

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.
这些海上漂流者中在西方世界最出名的当属约翰–万次郎了（John Manjiro，又名中滨–万次郎Nakahama Manjiro，译注）即便是在日本他也是家喻户晓。1841年初，就在梅尔维尔离开马萨诸塞州的费尔黑文（Fairhaven）开始那段日后成就了《白鲸记》的捕鲸历险后两天，万次郎随同另外四名年长的同伴离开他们的村子，位于日本四大岛屿，四国岛西南部崎岖的海岸边的中之滨町，出海打鱼。他们在海上航行的第四天，舵手发现滚滚乌云向他们压来，急忙下令将船划向海岸。但为时已晚。此后两周多的时间里他们向东漂过了400英里终于在酉岛上了岸，酉岛是座火山喷发形成的荒芜小岛，他们只能饮水坑里的苦咸水捕食岛上筑巢的海鸟充饥。而到了夏末，连信天翁都离开了小岛。就这样在岛上度过了五个月，外出觅食的万次郎看到了一艘船向小岛驶来。

The castaways’ saviour, William Whitfield, captain of the JohnHowland, 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.
这五位日本鲁滨逊们的救星，来自Fairhaven的捕鲸船，约翰–霍兰号（John Howland）的船长William Whitfield，给这个聪明的年轻人带来了全新的人生。当他们抵达火奴鲁鲁后，船长问万次郎，是否愿意随他们前往费尔黑文。他同意了，此后他在教授数学和航海的Bartlett’s学院学习和当地人一样去教堂礼拜，与当地的女孩坠入情网。再后来，他签约重返太平洋参加了一次历时三年的捕鲸远航，返航之后他又登上一艘木材运输船绕过霍恩角（Cape Horn）前往旧金山，加入了加州的淘金大军。

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 katsura bush 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《白鲸记》面世距佩里准将到达日本还有两年，这年年初万次郎终于回到了日本，沧海桑田变革之风已经吹进了他的国家。在琉球外海，一艘美国捕鲸船放下了他和两名当年的同伴乘坐的小船。他们被带到了萨摩藩的领地鹿儿岛。当地的大名岛津齐彬问了万次郎很多问题，让他介绍诸如蒸汽船、火车、照片等神奇的事物，题问是友好的充满了好奇，并没有盘查的意思。不过，在长崎，万次郎被迫用脚踩踏一幅圣母和耶稣的画像。人们问他在美国能不能看到月亮上的桂树。他向人们描述了美国的政治体系，总统制下的优越生活以及新英格兰人民的社会如何的工业化以至于连上厕所的时间都被利用起来读书读报。让人惊讶的是他敢于批评日本政府，指责其慢待了了途经日本期望补充木材和淡水的外国船只，他也真心希望日本能够开放，甚至于打算让美国在日本兴建一个补充煤炭的燃料站，以使蒸汽船能够从加州出发横跨太平洋到达中国。

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”.
幕府并没有逮捕万次郎，并允许他去探望自己的母亲——在中之滨，母亲带着万次郎去看了他的墓碑——幕府还册封他为武士。他在土佐（现在的高知）教授英语，学生中不乏在后来推翻幕府统制颇具影响的人物，1860年起他又担任了明治立宪政府的官员。1854年幕府与佩里谈判时他是翻译之一。此后，他于1860年成为了第一批日本驻美外交使团的一员。不过，正如ChristopherBenfey在他的《大潮汹涌：镀金年代的异类、日本的离经叛道者与旧日本的开放》（兰登书屋2003年版）一书中所说的，如果说怒海迷航的恐怖经历成就了万次郎的人生，那么他带给日本最大的礼物则是他所翻译的，由Nathaniel Bowditch撰写被水手们称为“海员圣经”的《新美国航海实用手册》一书。

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.
至于罗纳德–迈克唐纳（Ranald MacDonald），虽然阿依努人将他移交给了政府，然后他又被用帆船送往长崎接受询问，但日本人待他还是很友好的。由于受过良好教育、举止优雅，他与通常那些粗鄙的落水者们形成了强烈的反差，人们让他去教授英语。他的学生中有一些后来成为了优秀的翻译家和字典的编撰者。其中最著名的莫过于森山荣之助，他是日本与佩里谈判时的首席翻译官，还担任了美国第一任驻日领事Townsend Harris的翻译。

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.) The Preble 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，美国战舰Preble号在船长James Glynn的指挥下驶入长崎，虽然能听到岸上的人对他们怒吼，说者各种他们听不懂的日语到“滚开、滚开”的英语，但他们充耳不闻。美国政府听说，一艘名为Lagoda号的美国捕鲸船在日本海岸附近失事，多名船员被囚禁。（历史学家现在认为，这些船员是逃兵，在押期间，由于疾病和自杀，他们的人数有所减少。）Preble号由香港出发前往营救他们，美国政府无疑也是企图通过这次行动来检验日本的军事戒备状况。Glynn万万没有想到的是，他听说那个早被认定已经死亡的迈克唐纳也在长崎。Preble号将这位探险家带往澳门，他为此欣喜若狂，之后他在那里搭上一艘船去了澳洲的金矿。

A secret no more

神秘面纱今不再

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.
此后没有多久，日本向世界敞开了它的大门。它很快就接受了工业化以及西方式的立宪政府，这恐怕是历史上最快的一次国家转型，因而广为人知。很少有人知道的是这一变革对航行在日本海岸附近的水手们产生的影响。英国探险家约翰爵士（St John）讲述了迈克唐纳离开长崎二十年后北海道附近一位外国海难幸存者的经历。当地在海岸上发现Eliza Corry号的船长时他已经奄奄一息了。他们没花多少时间就给他找来了欧洲式样的衣服，甚至还有一顶阔边呢帽（就是常见的那种圆筒形有圆边的帽子，译注）。在他的要求下人们找来了一张餐桌还有叉子和大大小小的勺子，还有一艘帆船急匆匆地起航给他带回了三个加州产的苹果以及三长外国产的笔记纸。

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.
时至今日捕鲸业仍未在日本绝迹。每年北半球冬季时节，日本会因为向南极海域派遣捕鲸船而面临人们的嘲讽。从事捕鲸业的港口小城太地的市长反问我们，为什么日本捕鲸船不得不冒着全世界的愤怒远涉重洋呢？对此他自问自答道，还不是因为美国人早在两个世界前就把日本所有的鲸鱼给捕了个精光嘛。