XVIII.] THE CHINESE IX JAPAN. CC9 



1 spent in the capital of Japan I employed in making an ex- 

 cursion in order to dredge from a Japanese boat in the river 

 debouching at the town. The Japanese boats differ from the 

 European in being jDropelled not by rowing but by sculling. 

 They have usually a deck above the level of the water, which 

 is dazziingly white and laid with matting, like the rooms in a 

 Japanese house. The dredging yielded a great number of 

 Anodonta, large Paludina, and some small shells. 



During our stay in Japan I requested Lieutenant Nordquist 

 to make as complete a collection of the land and fresh-water 

 Crustacea of the country as the short time permitted. In conse- 

 quence of the unusual poverty of the country in these animal 

 forms the result was much smaller than we had hoped. During 

 a preceding voyage to the Polar Sea I had assisted in making 

 a collection of land Crustacea on Renoe, an island north of the 

 limit of trees in the outer archipelago of northern Norway. It is 

 possible to collect there in a few hours as many animals of this 

 group as in fertile Japan in as many days. There are parts of Japan, 

 covered with thick woods and thickets of bushes, where during 

 a forenoon's excursion one can scarcely find a single crustacean, 

 although the ground is full of deep, shady clefts in which 

 masses of dried leaves are collected, and which therefore ought 

 to be an exceedingly suitable haunt for land mollusca. The 

 reason of this poverty ought perhaps to be sought in the want 

 of chalk or basic calcareous rocks, which prevails in the parts of 

 Japan which we visited. 



■ After the Swedish-Dutch minister had further given us a 

 splendid farewell dinner at the Grand Hotel, to which, as before, 

 the Japanese ministers and the rejoresentatives of the foreign 

 powers in Japan were invited, we at last weighed anchor on the 

 1 1th October to prosecute our voyage. At this dinner we saw 

 for the first time the Chinese embassy which at the time visited 

 Japan with the view of settling the troublesome Loo-Choo affair 

 which threatened to lead to a war between the tAvo great powers 

 of Eastern Asia. The Chinese ambassadors were, as usual, two 

 in number, being commissioned to watch one over the other. 

 One of them laughed immoderately at all that was said during 

 dinner, although he did not understand a word. According 

 to what I was told by one who had much experience in the 

 customs of the heavenly empire, he did this, not because he 

 heard or understood anything worth laughing at, but because 

 he considered it good manners to laugh. 



Remarkable was the interest which the Chinese labourers 

 settled at Yokohama took in our voyage, about which they 

 appeared to have read something in their own or in the 

 Japanese newspapers. When I sent one of the sailors ashore 

 to execute a commission, and asked him how he could do that 



