INTERCOURSE WITH INHABITANTS ON SHORE. 267 



filled paunches, they carried ofi"in tlieir capacious sleeves pieces of the bread and ham, where- 

 with to refresh their memories and their future appetites. As the night approached, the 

 Japanese took their departure, full of courteous expressions of satisfaction at the hospitality of 

 the ships. 



The following morning (July 15th) a surveying party was again, at a very early hour, 

 dispatched by the Commodore to sound further up the bay. Three of the boats pulled round 

 to the other side of the battery which shut out a part of the country inland from the view of 

 those on board ship. Here they found an inlet and a beautiful surrounding country watered 

 by a stream, upon the fertile borders of which were groujied a great number of picturesque 

 Japanese villages, while fertile fields and highly cultivated gardens stretched out beyond them. 

 The officers ordered their boats up tlie river and were met as they advanced by crowds of the 

 inhabitants, gathering upon the shores to satisfy their curiosity in a look at the strangers. 

 Some of the people greeted the boats with every indication of welcome, and readily supplied 

 those on board with water and some excelleni peaches. There were a few government boats 

 lying near, and the officers on board gladly welcomed our people to a visit, in the course of 

 which such a mutual friendliness sprung up that the Americans joined the Japanese in a social 

 pipe or two of tobacco. Our officers, in returu for their hospitable entertainment, amused their 

 newly-found hosts with an exhibition of their revolvers and fired them oft', to the intense sur- 

 prise and delight of the Japanese. In the midst of this enjoyment of social intercourse^, where 

 the greatest harmony prevailed, and in which the Japanese seemed remarkably genial in manner 

 and expansive in hospitality, down came some severe official and beckoned oft' his countrymen, 

 who rapidly scattered away, like so many children caught in the very act of some awful 

 disobedience. 



On the return of the ships' boats from sounding, all the officers and men were in raptures 

 with the kindly disposition of the Japanese and the beauty of their country. In fact, nothing 

 could be more picturesque than the landscapes wherever the eye was directed, and even those 

 on board ship never tired of looking at the surrounding shores. The high cultivation of the 

 land everywhere, the deep, rich green of all the vegetation, the innumerable thrifty villages 

 embowered in groves of trees at the heads of the inlets which broke the uniformity of the bay, 

 and the rivulets flowing down the green slopes of the hills and calmly winding through the 

 meadows, combined to present a scene of beauty, abundance, and happiness, which every one 

 delighted to contemplate. 



In the course of the afternoon the Commodore transferred his pennant from the Susquehanna 

 to the Mississippi. He then proceeded some ten miles further up the bay toward Yedo, and 

 reached a point estimated to be distant twenty miles from the anchorage at Uraga. The port 

 or shipping place of Yedo was distinctly seen on the southern side of the capital, but not the 

 capital itself, which, being composed of low houses, like those of China, was completely hidden 

 behind a projecting point, beyond which the bay took an easterly direction, and was bounded by 

 a shore of low alluvial land. The town observed was probably Sinagawa, a suburb of Yedo. 

 On the western side of the bay a view was obtained of Kanagawa and Konazaki, two populous 

 places. Some four miles beyond the extreme point reached by the Mississippi there was a cape 

 formed by a projecting point of land, and marked by a white tower, which resembled in 

 appearance a light-house ; it was some three or four miles still further where the shipping and 

 supposed port of Yedo appeared to the view. The Commodore thus supposed that he had taken 

 his ship within ten miles of Yedo, and as the lead gave twenty fathoms where he put about he 



