218 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



consisted of melons and bananas brought from the Bonin Islands. These took them completely 

 captive and they begged that they might carry some home to their wives. They were^ of course, 

 told to do so, and forthwith the loose folds of each one's robe above his girdle was converted 

 into a pocket and loaded yrith what it would hold. 



When things had reached this stage, there was but too much reason to fear that "the tide of 

 wine and wassail was fast gaining on the dry land of sober judgment." All reserve was now 

 fully thawed out. The quiet repose of a calm contentment sat enthroned on the shining faoe of 

 the jolly old mayor of Napha. The wrinkled visages of the two withered old treasurers flushed 

 and exj^anled into rubicund fullness. The regent alone preserved Ms silent, anxious demeanor, 

 and all he drank was neutralized in its effects by his excessive dignity. He appeared cordial and 

 friendly but once, and that was when the Commodore offered him an assortment of American 

 garden seed and vegetables. These he promised to plant and carefully cultivate. The Commo- 

 dore had previously landed, as a present, cattle and buifaloes; these he also promised should be 

 carefully looked to and their offspring preserved. 



The band had been playing on the deck while the guests were feasting, and when the 

 weightier part of the festival was over the Commodore ordered down some of the more expert 

 performers, to play solos on the flageolet, hautboy, clarionet, and cornet-a-piston. The regent 

 listened attentively, but the mayor and treasurers were too busy in stowing away the epular 

 fragments to be moved by any "concord of sweet sounds." Coifee was offered them, under the 

 name of "American tea." They did not relish it, and resorted once more to their pipes. The 

 attendants had not been forgotten. They had enjoyed an abttudance of meat and drink in the 

 steward's pantry, and relished it quite as much as their masters. But all earthly enjoyment 

 must have an end, and the feast at last was over. The guests were jjut on shore at Tumai, 

 leaving the ship under a salute of three guns ; and so ended the dinner given to the regent on 

 on board the Susquehanna. 



The return to Lew Chew aflbrded to some of the officers an oj^portunity of making further 

 examinations as to the external aspect of the island, and of catching further glimpses of the 

 habits and pursuits of the inhabitants. One of the gentlemen attached to the Saratoga thus 

 describes the result of one of his explorations : 



" Rambled over the hill this afternoon to a most remarkable village. Approaching toward 

 the spot, it appeared to be a thick swamp of green brushwood. Not a house nor anything of 

 the kind was to be seen. It looked like one of those long, low, marshy thickets, in which I 

 hunted for blackbirds' eggs, in my boyhood. But on reaching it, after crossing a wide, clear 

 field of grass, we passed into and through one of the sweetest little villages I ever entered, 

 completely embowered with thickly matted tops of the tall and swaying bamboo, artistically 

 laid off in squares, with level streets of red sandy soil, overarched Avith the branches of the 

 bamboo, that formed hedges on either side, through which, at regular distances, were oi^enings 

 into the gardens surrounding the dwellings of the inhabitants, highly cultivated with a variety 

 of vegetables. I had neither read of nor seen a town like this." 



In the course of his ramble, the officer from whose journal this extract is made entered 

 several of the dwellings, for the purpose of gratifying his curiosity concerning the domestic 

 arrangements. He found the floors invariably covered with thick mats, of regular width and 

 length, laid side by side, as a carpet. These he found constituted the sleeping place at night, 

 and to preserve them from dirt, the inhabitants always step on them with the feet bare, or 



