Simoda—in Japanese “Lowerfield”—situated in the principality of Idzoo, which occupies about the same latitudinal, though not isothermal lines—as our state of North Carolina, is a place containing a population of twenty thousand. The streets are narrow, though regularly laid out, and at their intersections have gates, which may be easily closed in the event of any emeute. At their points are also placed stone structures, surmounted by little roofs protecting copies of the laws and municipal regulations so conspicuously posted, that all who run, may read. The houses, which are usually and ornamentally stuccoed in light blue and white diamond shapes, are nearly all of one story with parapets, and without chimneys. Between the parapets wires are stretched to prevent the bird, which “by the hoarseness of its note doth indicate a crow,” from alighting on the roofs. The Japanese certainly can’t regard them as a bird of evil omen, from the great numbers that fill their streets. Perhaps they are kept from injury, for sanitary purposes, like one more ungainly, found in our southern cities. There are a number of temples in and near the place, dedicated to different deities. Behind the town stretches a lovely level valley for some miles, through which flows a little stream—Simoda gawa, and surrounded on either side by towering bluff-hills, that make the resemblance very great to the scenery on the Potomac, at Harper’s Ferry. From this stream, junks and ships are supplied with fresh water, and on its banks are built rice and grain mills, with undershot wheels, to turn which, the water is diverted from its course by artificial excavations. The amphitheatre of high hills that surround the place in other directions, is very thickly wooded, and presents a green and lovely prospect from the water. The town has about fifteen hundred houses, and it is wonderful to see how many people a Japanese town will hold.

The harbor of Simoda, though of rather difficult access at times to sailing vessels, and subject to quite a heavy swell, when the wind blows from a southerly direction, is quite a secure one, after getting in. The entrance is narrow between high bluffs, but on passing inside, the water spreads into a fan-shaped bay, with a bight, on which the principal town of Simoda is situated, on the left hand, which place is not visible until reaching a central island. It is encompassed on every hand by high hills, bleak and uninviting in some patches, and others cultivated in terraced fields of rice and wheat, or clothed in the deep verdure of the pine and other trees. Across the bay of Simoda about half a mile round a sweep of white level-shiny beach, on which the waves sullenly chafe, is a little fishing village, called Kakizaki, which also has its temples. Here was a spring possessed of sulphurous qualities; and on the beach the ship’s seines were hauled with some success.

Having to remain at Simoda some time, a party under Lieutenant Maury was at once set at work to make a survey of the harbor. The officers spent their time ashore in strolls through the town, visits to the temples, rambles into the country, occasionally taking a gun, though there was very little to kill. The people, when we landed, appeared glad to see us, and were always inclined to be sociable, but for the omnipresence of their police. They would gather around and examine the cloth of our clothes with much curiosity—particularly the old women—and the designs on our buttons. The remarkable and unremitting espionage of the Japanese is everywhere shown. Should you give some peasant a button, even while apparently out of sight of any one, it will be most singular, if one of the officers does not return it to you before or after you are on shipboard again. At first our steps were dogged by the police wherever we went. This did not require much effort in the town, but when we struck into the country and climbed hills with thick and sharp undergrowth, these officers not being as well habited as ourselves to withstand brier and thorn, their scratched legs usually paid the penalty. Besides this, their lazy habits had made them very indifferent pedestrians. In a walk of any length they generally broke down; they would rub their legs and beg us to return, but as we were not aware of having solicited the pleasure of their company, we declined compliance with their requests. The commodore complained to the acting chief magistrate, Kimakawa Kahei, of this practice of spying upon the movements of his officers, and said, that if it were not stopped, he should recommend them each to take a stick with them, and stop it. They contended, that it was a precaution for our protection, the people not yet being accustomed to the sight of us. They were answered, that we felt ourselves quite competent for our own protection.

After this, these gentry, if they attempted to follow, were driven back at once, and if they spied upon our movements at all, it was at such a distance, that their presence was not perceived by us. In a short time, the officers moved as freely in the area of country granted by the treaty—a radius of about sixteen English miles, as if they were in the United States. The chief objects of interest ashore to visit, are the Sintoo, Buddhist temples, and some smaller ones, dedicated to the tutelar deities of the soldiers, and the marines. The Japanese display great rural taste always in their locations, selecting the most picturesque, and at times, the most elevated spots for their erection. Attached to these temples are usually kungwas, or places, where the weary traveller may rest for the night, and get some tea and eatables from the attendant priests. A Sintoo temple just at the end of the principal street from the landing at Simoda, was the chief place for the holding of official interviews, and subsequently for bazars. It stood in the midst of a cemetery overhung by large trees, and steep boulders of granite. The spacious and level yard in front, was divided with stone crossings smoothly cut, and in it stood alone, a tower of cyclopean masonry, in which was hung one of their sweet-toned bells. Their manner of striking, which is by a piece of green wood swung horizontally on the outside of the bell, gives a delightful softness to the sound, while the proximity to the earth increases the distance at which it may be heard. The carving and frieze work about the columns at the entrance to this temple are as elaborate and fantastic as can be imagined, while the little hydras and animal images perched upon the eaves and roof, are as numerous as on a Chinese Joss house. The interior is very plain, and the Sintooist worships no idol. Living here was a priest named Dosangee—his head entirely shorn. He was quite polite to us, and in return used to expect us to give him the pronunciation of some words in English, which he was endeavoring to learn by the aid of an English and Dutch dictionary, which he had. He accompanied me through the temple.

In one part of the temple, the commodore, from the initials “M. C.P.” on some boxes there seen, seemed to have had a room set apart. The altar, in the place of worship was very plain, and had incense burning on it. Its only ornaments consisted of bronze castings representing their sacred crane on the back of a tortoise, and a small gilded elephant. There, of course, was the invariable accompaniment of Sintoo worship—a small mirror—an emblem of the soul’s perfect purity; or, according to some, as plainly as the votary sees his own features in that mirror, so plainly do the mediatory spirits to whom he prays, see his spiritual and temporal wants. Such a style of worship would scarcely answer for the belles of our land. As the devotee enters one of these temples he first drops a few “cash” (about the fifteenth of a cent) into a carefully-secured box at the door, then by shaking a lot of sleigh-looking bells hanging from a beam, attracts to his prayers the attention of his mediatory spirits, who only number some three thousand—these are the kami, confreres of the spiritual emperor or mikado, and analogous to the saints of the catholics.

The Sintoo mythology also comprehends a god of war. On entering the grounds where one of these temples were located, we passed through a military barrack, where were a number of small stallions tethered from either cheek, wrong end foremost in their stalls, who grew quite indignant in their cavortings at our presence. On our approach they turned out their guard—three or four stupid-looking soldiers, with tin-basin looking hats, and the calves of their legs swathed in blue cotton cloth, upholding the insignia of rank of their chief, which were cruciform lances in coverings of shark-skin. In the building, we saw on the walls, offerings of swords and bows, from those who had deemed themselves miraculously preserved in battle.

In the Mariners’ temple we saw suspended from boards on the walls small queues of the Japanese seamen, who had undergone the imminent peril of shipwreck, together with details of the particular storm, pictures of foundering junks, and the names of those who escaped. The parting with this little pig-tail of hair, the Japanese sailor thinks is one of the greatest sacrifices that he can make to his patron divinity. The approach to this place was over a fine balustraded bridge, and under a noble well-planted avenue of the yew-pine tree. Another yasiro, on a mountain-side, is reached by a direct and continuous flight of over a hundred steps. Over at Kakisaki, in one of the temples, is an allegorical painting of some size, the subject of which is very nearly an embodiment of “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and the hero is as defiant as Saint George with the Dragon. The plan of the picture is a birds’-eye view. A horrid ogre or devil dwells deep in a cavernous recess or hell, and his daily food is women, many of whom are confined in the gloomy precincts of his prison. A young prince prays for power to rescue them, which is granted, and he is provided with a potent potion. Disguised as a pedlar he crosses dangerous chasms and descends steep cliffs; at last, arriving at the door of the devil’s abode, he gains admittance, and gives the devil the potion, which he drinks and becomes drunk, when the young champion despatches him, and sets at liberty all the unfortunate victims that he has there confined.

This explanation is from memory, and may not be entirely correct.

At the first-named temple, a party of our officers, who taking a long tramp on a hunt, during the day, did not get back until a late hour of the night, desired to lay on the mats in the kunqwa until morning, and threw themselves down. The Japanese strongly objected to this, and insisted upon their going off to their ships. This, on account of the lateness of the hour, they declined doing. The officials went off and came back with a lot of soldiers and a number of lanterns, and were finally guilty of the rudeness of pulling them by the feet. At this, our officers kicked over their lanterns, and cocked and capped their pieces, when the valiant assailants vanished at once. Tatsnoske, one of the chief officers of the place, at four o’clock in the morning, then went off to the flag-ship, had the commodore woke up, and desired him to order these officers off to the ship. The commodore refused to do any such thing; and the next morning sent the same officers and a captain of marines to demand an apology for their conduct from Karakaha Kahai, which was given without delay.

There being no treaty of commerce with the Japanese, preparatory to such a result hereafter, a number of our coins had been delivered to them before leaving the bay of Yedo, that they, might be assayed at the capital, and the relative value, with their own, established. In the meantime, it was no doubt intended, or thought on our side, that as the people in the stores were willing to sell, and our officers were continually offering to purchase little curiosities and other articles of their handicraft that were to be found in their shops, that in this way, things would find their level, and an impromptu trade, as it were, spring up. This notion proved a mistaken one; things were purchased, but they were paid for in silver dollars at the rate of twelve hundred cash each, and not directly to the seller, but through a government officer called gayoshio.

In strolling the streets of Simoda you see old crones, arranging, in the open air, their warp for weaving. The personal pulchritude of the cadaverous-complexioned Japanese women, is not much under the best circumstances, but when it is remembered that on marrying, they shave off their eyebrows, and blacken their teeth with some iron rust and acid, as a badge of the marital state, their appearance becomes most repulsive. The younger women, with their elaborate arrangement of hair, who have not yet undergone this process of disfigurement, though rather ungainly in gait, owing to the use of clogs, and wearing about the hips an awkward compressing scarf, are quite good-looking and with lighter complexions, have also much better-shaped eyes than the Chinese.

The only wheeled vehicle you may see is a rude hand-cart, the wheels without tires. Should you meet a man on the back of an ox bringing to town bundles of wood, the sight of your barbarian garments are very apt to incense him greatly; and the rider, disturbed by his movements dismounts, takes him by the tether, and leads him aside.

The fronts of the shops are closed with sliding screens of paper, oiled to admit the light, and the floors raised about two feet from the ground are covered with mat-cushions, upon which, a-la-Turk, sits the shopkeeper, who has left his straw sandals at the door. You would scarcely be expected to remove your boots at every shopdoor you entered, but if you stepped up on the platform the shopkeeper would intimate that your leather shoon would mar the whiteness of his mats. The plan of purchase was mostly pantomimic. Pointing to the article, you ask, “How mutchee?” The shopkeeper repeating your “how mutchee?” as he makes a mental calculation, proceeds to hold up the fingers of one or both hands before you, each finger being one hundred cash—estimating twelve hundred to the dollar. The purchase completed, you do not pay the seller, but the articles with your name, and his mark are sent to the government officer, gayoshio, when the imperial paw is placed upon the specie you pay, and the seller is apt to get the amount in copper coin. By an arbitrary decision they made their itzeboo—a square piece of silver with the government stamp, equal to a Spanish dollar—and as they could take this dollar and coin nearly three itzeboos from it, it became a very good operation for the imperial treasury, at no time suffering from over-filled coffers.

The religion of the Japanese enjoins cleanliness of person upon its votaries, but can scarcely divert the repulsive and indecent manner in which it is obtained. At the bath-houses in Simoda the sexes of all ages bathe indiscriminately together.

The Japanese in their intercourse with us, were always pertinacious in assuring us, that they were not Chinese; indeed they would have been very indignant to be thought of a kindred race. They did not take long to find out, that we were not Dutch. They would mention derisively the fact of the length of intercourse the Chinese had had with other countries, and yet, that they had never built square-rigged vessels like ours; they intimated more enterprise than this for themselves. After the signing of the treaty with us the imperial edict preventing the building of their vessels, without open sterns, was repealed. The larger junks usually laid in the bay of Sirahama, further northward: those who came to Simoda, ran in to make a harbor, when the weather became threatening, or were engaged in bringing copper ore, from some neighboring province, and carrying back charcoal and wood.

The Macedonian, after a little over two weeks absence, returned from the Bonin islands, bringing the intelligence, that the man, that we had previously left at Port Lloyd, had decamped from there on some whaler, after regaling himself on Uncle Sam’s bullocks. We hailed her approach with much gratification, as she brought sixty large sea-turtles—a perfect God-send—an oasis in the desert of salt junk. “Soup! soup!” resounded in the messes, louder than the “Beef! beef!” in the American camp, that invoked the thunders of Henry.

The Lexington was sent to Loo-Choo to look after things till the return of the other ships; carrying out the recommendation contained in the introduction to the work of Golownin: “Provided judicious means shall be used and a foundation laid by a progressive acquaintance through Loo-Choo.” The Macedonian, Vandalia, and Southampton, were despatched to Hakodade, or as it was then spelt on Russian authority, Chackodade, in the island of Yeso. A poor fellow, killed by falling from the topsail yard of the Powhatan, was buried without difficulty or objection in the ground of a temple, back of Kakizaki.

On a fine sunshiny morning, in the latter part of April, I had landed, according to previous appointment, to take a botanical tramp into the country with the author of the “Middle Kingdom,” and with a gentleman from South Carolina, our botanist. I reached the shore before them, and, a number of the villagers around, stood on the glistening white beach between Simoda and the fishing village of Kakizaki, watching the lazy swell as it came in a roll against Centre Sima, or broke with a low splash through its Gothic cavern, when I was approached by two young Japanese, whose dress and address told, that they were gentlemen in their land. They wore the rich brocade breeches; the handles of their short and long swords were decorated with amulets, and the light blue oval on the summit of their fresh shaven polls, shone far smoother than “a stubble land at harvest home.” After the characteristic bended and knee-pressing salutation, accompanied with the aspirated “Eh!” which only a Japanese can do exactly, which I jocularly replied to with “Abeyo!” they came quite close to me. Pointing to our different ships in the harbor, they attempted to pronounce their names, but as they scarcely succeeded, either in their sequence or their articulation, particularly of Mississippi and Powhatan, I did it for them, and at their request wrote all of their names down, with one of their camel’s hair pencils. This done, they affected to examine with some interest the chain attached to my “tokay,” or watch, and at the same time slipped into the bosom of my vest an enveloped letter, which noticing, I immediately attempted to withdraw, when they gently restrained my hand, cast an anxious glance around, and gave a most imploring look for secrecy. A moment’s thought, and I was willing to indulge them in this, believing the document to have some reference to a matter which had been mooted by the younger officers of the squadron, of which I was one. Just after this, a couple of the resident officers came up from the direction of Simoda, whose approach was the signal for the scattering of the villagers, who are not permitted to stand and gaze on a stranger. Between them and my incognito epistolary friends, salutations were formally interchanged, when both parties moved off in opposite directions. The examining look which accompanied these otherwise very ordinary politenesses, on the part of those from Simoda, caused the idea to pass through my mind that the others were from another province.

By this time, my friends from the flag-ship having joined me, we struck into the country to the southward, to take what in the “pigeon” dialect of the Chinaman, is called a “look see” at the botany of Japan, which those who have more of this pleasant information than myself, represent as being of much interest.

Our path led through a very broken yet well-wooded and cultivated country. We entered a small building used as a schoolhouse, and also as a place of worship. In a room was a colossal figure of some female deity in a sitting posture, which, not being a Buddhist representation, must have been intended for a likeness of Ten-sio-dai-zin, the especial deity of Japan. Officers who had seen it before us, looked upon it as a fine specimen of their casting in bronze, but we found it on examination to be of wood, painted in imitation. We had an opportunity of seeing the little dwarfed trees which they are so skilful in preserving; and in front of many of the houses, different trees trained in the form of animals, with sea-shells to represent the eyes. The cultivation, which is very close and clean, was mostly in terraces and between hills. Occasionally we reached a level field, which was being ploughed. This is done with a small plough, with a single hand and beam, the share being like an iron scoop, not of much diameter. It is drawn by an ox in traces, and with wooden saddle, while a small boy leads him with a stick attached to a ring in the nose, and a man holds the handle of the diminutive earth-scratcher. Little pathway streams are turned to use by being made to fall into wooden troughs on the end of balanced wooden levers, which filling and precipitating at intervals, with a weight on the opposite end of the beam, are made to pound rice in mortars. We encountered any number of wayside shrines, mostly made by placing small stone images in little coves: occasionally a short flight of steps led up to one. At these the wayfarer prays.

About two o’clock in the day we came upon a large urban Buddhist temple. The grounds around were quite extensive and well cultivated. You entered them under a number of steep-roofed gateways, guarded by a number of little stone-lieutenants to Buddha, who seemed to be armed with besoms to sweep away evil spirits when they should visit the premises at the pale glimpses of the moon. The building was larger than any I had seen in Simoda. The interior being unsealed overhead, you could look up through rough hewn timbers to the thatching of the roof. The floors, brightly polished, were covered with a white dust, as if the building was neighbor to a flour-mill. The grain of the wood of the large unpolished columns around the altar, was very beautiful. Buddhas in any number were around the room. Black barrel-shaped “tom-toms” were in the middle of the floor, the beating on which, by the shiny-headed priests, is intended to attract the attention of their divinities to their worship, as a daguerreotypist in taking your picture first tells you, “Now it commences.” On one side of the main entrance there was a native inscription: “The laws are ever revolving;” on the other, “The period of Buddha is near: remember it.” To the beams inside were pasted a number of strips of white paper, which when blank are called gohir, and intended as emblems of purity; and when written upon, according to some, are inscribed with moral and religious sentences. Those that I noticed were covered with Japanese characters, which I was told were the names of those buried in an adjoining cemetery, for whom mass had been performed. In the cemetery near by were a great number of tombs—little square stone columns very close together, because their dead were buried in a sitting posture. On all of these you saw a compound character, meaning “Returned to vacuity,” and underneath the inscription told that Leu-tah-churo, or somebody else, had gone to nothingness, in such a year of the reign of Tairi.

Eight lascivious-looking priests resided at the temple, having the receipts from the kunqua attached, as a part of their revenue.

The hour of the day having arrived, when that tocsin of man’s soul, the dinner-bell, would have been heard, if at home, we seated ourselves on the front steps of the temple to partake of a little “chow-chow.” While thus engaged the incidents of the morning came to my recollection, and I handed over my epistle “extraordinaire,” which I had gotten from the two Japanese, to my friend our interpreter, to get an inkling of what it was all about, at the same time giving him my surmises as to its contents. It was of much more import; he thought the commodore should see it, promising to return it to me. As there were a number around us, no doubt indulging in the Japanese espionage, I only got at the time, the superscription, which was: “A secret communication, for the American men-of-war ships, to go up higher.”

On leaving this place we clambered to the summit of high, bleak hills, with a very white volcanic formation, at the top, so bright that at a distance it might well have been taken for snow. The ascent was anything but agreeable, as we were impeded by thick bushes, brier and bramble. Two Japanese who attempted to play pilot, fared worst, but upon getting up some distance had the “sava” to see that going ahead were as well as going back. We rested at an abandoned quarry on the summit, and from here had a fine view of the surrounding country. My companions having filled the leaves of an old census-book with little botanical specimens, comprising rare little plants and cosy little wild flowers of every hue, together with what they thought were some new specimens of the fern family, we descended into a pretty little valley waving in wheat, and at sundown were at Simoda.

That night the officer of the mid-watch of the Mississippi heard the words “American! American!” pronounced in a low tone from the top of the gangway-ladder, and immediately two young Japanese descended to the deck. They made signs to him of great fatigue, held up their tender though blistered hands, and desired to cast off their boat from the ship, which they were not permitted to do. An attempt was made to comprehend them by means of a Chinese servant, who was awoke for the purpose, but the domestic celestial insisted that they had “rice for sale.” The commander of the Mississippi directed them to be put on board of the flag-ship. Here it was ascertained they were from Yedo; that they were desirous of coming to our country, and that, unable to effect that object or have communication with us when we lay off Yokohama, they had followed us, at much risk, in an open boat, from the bay of Yedo to our anchorage at Simoda. Their plan was, after getting on board of us, to permit their boat to go adrift, allowing their swords to remain in her, which family relics the Japanese regard as very heir-looms, not to be parted with but in the last extremity, and by this means to produce the belief that their owners had been drowned when the boat should be picked up. Fearing there might be some deception in the matter, perhaps a ruse to see in what faith we were prepared to observe their laws, which we were aware prohibited any of their people from leaving Japan for a foreign country, they were ordered to be put ashore in a ship’s boat at a point where they would not be liable to observation, which was done, the hour being nearly two in the morning. On reaching the beach they soon disappeared in the woods.

A few days afterward, some of our officers in their strolls ashore, ascertained that there were two Japanese confined in a cage at a little barrack back of the town, and on going there they were found to be the persons who had paid the midnight visit to our ships, and they also proved to be my unfortunate friends of the letter. They did not appear greatly down-cast by their situation, and one of them wrote in his native character on a piece of board, and passed through the bars of his cage, to one of our surgeons present, what follows:—

The commodore, it is said, did not hear of their capture and confinement, until the next morning, when he sent some officers ashore to see what might be done in the way of intercession, but on reaching the barrack, it was found that they had that morning been sent to the city of Yedo, and as the attendant at the place made sign, for the purpose of being beheaded.

The following is the translation of the letter, which the unfortunate aspirants, for a sight of the great world, beyond their hermetic empire, placed in the breast of my vest, the neat and sharply-defined characters of whose original, as it lies before me, would assure even one, who did not comprehend their language, that it had been pencilled by men of intelligence and taste.

An additional note enclosed, was:—

The Japanese smaller ordnance is quite defective, some of their pieces loading at the breech, by unscrewing. Many of their gentlemen, among their other accomplishments, study the military art. To this number, and their artillery officers, our handsome small pieces,—Lieutenant Dalgren’s twelve-pounder brass howitzers—without a superfluous ounce of metal, and probably as admirable guns as are to be found in use among any nation—were always objects of great interest. The Japanese were presented with one of these howitzers before we left the bay of Yedo, but none of the lock-wafers, or boxes of canister, or other fixed ammunition for them, were given, nor any instruction as to the manner in which they were made.

The following is a translation of a letter from a military man from Yedo, who, for the single object of collecting information, had been following the squadron, in the hope of meeting one of our officers. He was a gentleman of some rank, and had influence with several men in authority at Simoda, who visited him and never prevented his coming aboard. The letter was written in Dutch, and as a specimen of progress of military science in Japan, and search for other information, is not uninteresting.

A GREAT SECRET.

The following day he was on board, according to promise, in the suite of some Japanese officers. There was no opportunity to answer his questions that day, and on the return of the ships from Hakodade he did not make his appearance, retained by illness or otherwise at Yedo, that is all. The officers heard from him, but never saw him again after that day, and his questions remained unanswered. “Give me a recipe to make percussion-caps.”

We noticed the number of matchlocks, that the Japanese were armed with, when we landed first in Japan—at Gorihama. The Dutch writers say, that they are aware of the superiority of the musket, but that a deficiency of flints in the geological formation of their country, and their determined aversion to dependence upon foreigners for anything essential to their military equipment, prevents their adoption. Their curiosity about the mode of making percussion-caps, and the “wafers” for the howitzers, was very great at all times.

It was well enough with the Japanese, as long as they remained secluded, but when the visit of the American ships gave their military men an opportunity of seeing what great improvements had been made in

the contrast showed them the defectiveness of their defences, and with an enterprise far ahead of their Cathayan neighbors, they at once proceeded to cudgel their brains to see how their security might be made greater. They at first thought of fortifying Simoda, but being told that it could never become a great commercial place, they gave that up. Izabavo, one of their most prominent engineers, was told to make a report as to the fortification of Uraga, because with more sagacity than that displayed by the Americans, they know its importance with reference to their capital. Yedo is the London—the Paris of Japan. When it falls, the empire goes with it. They know that the supplies for this enormous place are gotten coastwise by the junks, who come into the bay, and that the blockading of Uraga in the bay of Yedo, easily reached, would stop the throat of the Japanese empire.

Izabavo reported, that, as no two fortifications could protect Uraga, and that the width and roughness of the bay at times, and the depth of water, would make floating batteries impracticable, a gunboat system, such as was once adopted by our own government, must be their defence. These matters were discussed by the imperial council, as also the reorganization of their army on the European plan, that is the having a standing army, that would obey promptly, the behests of the centralized government at Yedo, and quiet any refractory sentiment of their thousands, like the coup d’etat of the 2d of December by Napoleon III., instead of each of the princes of the empire contributing a quota of troops, as now.

We had now lain nearly a month at Simoda, seeing more of Japan than during the two months we lay in the bay of Yedo. We had enjoyed the walks ashore, we had enjoyed baths from a fine spring, and picknicked in the woods of Sarahama. But we had missed Foogee Yama, which at all other points we thought ubiquitous. I had climbed the high hills back of Kakizaki, to get another look at the mountain, but other and higher hills more distant, obstructed the view.

Foogee Yama since our arrival in the waters of Japan, as the Howadjis on the Nile tell of the great pyramid, seemed to follow us wherever we went. When the cold clear morning of February found us running into the bay of Kawatsoo, we saw over our bowsprit Foogee, looming up in austere magnificence. When our colors were hauled down in the evening at Yokohama, every one admired the majestic beauty of Foogee peering like a ponderous pile of marble out of the furnace of sunset. If the rains fell heavily during the night, when the curtain of cloud lifted up in the morning, in patches here and there, Foogee appeared to wear under its mantle of chilling cold, a garment of genial green; and when the Mississippi lay at Webster island, from her hurricane-deck, above the line of pines that covered the bold bluffs of the shore, sometimes near, sometimes afar off, its summit clothed in fleecy clouds of deferential beauty, grandly shone the towering mound; so now, land-locked and our view shut in by the high hills around Simoda, we missed Foogee Yama.