I WILL NOW examine the legacy of Bird's stay in Japan in 1878, and will do this in two ways. First, I will look at what its impact was on her and the people who helped her at the time. Then I will consider its longer-term effects as reprints and translations of her book rekindled interest in an event that had long lain forgotten.

PART 1 : BIRD AND HER CIRCLE

On Bird herself

‘The colder, drier weather restored her, and she was fairly well when she left that most lovely and interesting land, where she had spent seven busy months, reaping a golden harvest of knowledge for her own country.’

This is how Stoddart describes Bird's mood as she is about to board the S.S. Volga on her departure from Japan, reflecting the satisfaction she felt at having completed her journey and recovered her health. The last part of the sentence nicely complements what Bird herself said at the beginning of her own book, namely that ‘… though I found the country a study rather than a rapture, its interest exceeded my largest expectations’. In a letter she wrote to John Murray from Hakodate when she arrived there from Aomori she said ‘the scenery is monotonous, the mode of travelling slow and painful’. So though her journey in Japan had not necessarily proved enjoyable, it amply repaid her in-depth study of a wide range of topics, which supports my idea that it was made to satisfy the responsibility placed on her by Parkes.

In terms of its significance for Bird herself, this journey was the pivotal event in her life of travel, and it is important for the basis it provided for later expeditions and their successful outcome. She became the first woman to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society as a result of it, the highest honour for a traveller to attain, and it is also connected with events that unfolded later.

I have already discussed in Chapter 2 the efforts Bird made to acquaint the British public with the journeys she made after her trip to Japan and so I will not dwell on them here, but there is just one point I need to re-stress, which is the following.