The Iwakura Mission

On 23 December 1871 (the 12th day of the 11th month of Meiji 4) they sailed on the Pacific Mail steamer America.

They arrived on 15 January. On the 31st they left by the transcontinental railway, going east by way of Sacramento and Ogden.

Heavy snow in the Rockies closed the railway and held them here. They stayed at the Townsend House and saw in the New Year of Meiji 5 in the city.

Iwakura, who had travelled with a topknot and Japanese dress, was persuaded by his son Tomosada, a student in America, to cut off his topknot here.

They visited on 18 and 19 June and came back on 2 August. Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke at the farewell banquet at the Revere House, and four days later they sailed for England.

They landed on 17 August from the Cunard steamer Olympus. Kume wrote that, seen from the south bank of the Mersey, coal smoke darkened the sky over the city even on a sunny day.

They spent late August and early September here, visiting the British Museum, riding the new Underground and attending concerts at the Royal Albert Hall.

On their first visit, on 7 September, they were astonished by the state rooms and drove round the grounds. After waiting for the Queen to return from her summer holiday, they were received by Queen Victoria here on 5 December.

From 9 October they spent three days as guests of Lord Blantyre at Erskine House above the Clyde. They toured a cotton mill turning out 130,000 handkerchiefs a day and a steel mill.

On 14 October they visited Edinburgh University, the Signet Library, the Advocates' Library and the Industrial Museum.

They arrived on 21 October and stayed at the Royal Station Hotel. They met the industrialist William Armstrong, toured his Elswick works and went down into the Gosforth colliery.

On 25 October they visited the village Titus Salt had built for his workers and looked round its school, nursing home and hospital.

They spent four days here from 28 October, staying at Banner Cross Hall, the house of George Wilson of the iron and railway firm Charles Cammell and Company, and visiting factories.

They visited on 30 October. Kume was struck by the care taken to keep and restore old Imari ware there, and suggested that pieces of such quality might be harder to find in Japan.

On 4 November they inspected the Chance glassworks and the schools attached to it.

They left London on 16 December and spent about two months in Paris. They called on President Thiers on 26 December and visited the Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame and the Gobelins and Sèvres workshops.

Their stay in Belgium lasted eight days, 17 to 24 February, and included an audience with King Leopold II. On the 21st they visited the Cockerill works at Seraing near Liège.

They arrived by rail from Belgium on the evening of 24 February. They had an audience with King Willem III, and the Dutch doctor Pompe van Meerdervoort served as their physician during the stay.

They came over from The Hague on 2 March. The city's canal system caught their attention above all, and they had it specially studied.

After a formal welcome at Bentheim station on the border on 7 March, they went by way of Münster to Essen to see the Krupp works, and took the night train from there to Berlin.

They arrived on 9 March and stayed until the 28th. On the 14th they visited Siemens and the Altes Museum, and on the 15th Bismarck gave a dinner for them at his residence.

On 27 March they toured the Neues Palais, Sanssouci with its picture gallery, the Belvedere on the Pfingstberg, the Marmorpalais and Babelsberg Palace.

They reached the Warsaw station at night at the end of March and were lodged in a hotel near the Winter Palace. Alexander II received them on 3 April, and on the 9th he gave a dinner for them in the Winter Palace, which Kume left out of his account.

J. F. Sick, the Danish king's envoy to Japan in 1870, acted as their escort, and King Christian IX received them on 19 April.

On 25 April, with snow on the streets, Iwakura was driven to the Royal Palace in a state coach drawn by six black horses and presented the mission to King Oscar II, who then gave a dinner in its honour.

Entering Germany for the third time, by way of Hamburg from Sweden, they visited the Naumann printing works in Frankfurt, which was printing Japan's first modern banknotes.

They arrived over the Brenner Pass in the night and were met by Count Fè d'Ostiani, the Italian minister to Japan. Kume described the size of the cathedral at length and was struck by the number of people copying works in the Uffizi.

They presented their credentials to King Vittorio Emanuele II, and visited St Peter's, the Vatican Museums, the Colosseum and the Baths of Caracalla.

They arrived from Rome early in the morning and visited Vanvitelli's royal palace. The party admired how the palace atrium framed the cascade at the end of the park when seen from the avenue.

From Naples they visited the ruins and were surprised that Roman streets already had separate lanes for carriages and pedestrians. On the way back they stopped at the excavations of Herculaneum.

They arrived from Rome on 27 May and visited St Mark's and its bell tower. The next day some members saw documents in the State Archives about the Japanese embassies that had come in 1585 and 1615.

They had an audience with the Emperor and talks with Foreign Minister Andrássy. The commissioners visited the Vienna World Exhibition, where Japan was exhibiting, on four days: 6, 9, 14 and 17 June.

After about four weeks touring Switzerland they came down through the south of France and took ship for home here. Their request to extend the tour to Portugal had been refused by Tokyo, which ordered the whole party back.