On a summer morning in 1865, the steamship Delhi dropped anchor in Southampton. On board were 17 young students from Satsuma, who had come to England in quest of the "essence of the West." Actually, there were 19 of them, but since the other two were not from Satsuma (they came, respectively, from Tosa and Nagasaki) they were left out of the official accounting, devoted as it was to "the Spirit of Young Satsuma." Thus, from the very first, the quest was to harbor parochial interests, and the group soon dispersed in various directions.
There was also disagreement as to just what the searched-for essence consisted of. The men (and boys, the youngest being 13 years old) all came from various disciplines, if their assigned interests may be so described, and they were going to a world that was strange indeed to them. Which among the varied impressions were essential?
In Singapore, one of many stops during the two-month voyage, they had discovered the pineapple and one of them wrote in his diary that it tasted like a peach but it looked like an egg. Something even more exotic awaited when they witnessed traditional Western leave-taking. "They were not content with just one embrace [but] their lips met again and again . . . there were even parents kissing their children. I was quite astonished, as I had never before seen anything like this."