HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 171 



lowering a boat as she came up, we going about on the 

 other tack to meet it. 



All the time the two steamers had been signalling with 

 almost painful rapidity. An almost continuous string 

 of flags might be seen ascending and descending the 

 respective masts in gala-like profusion. As the skipper 

 remarked, it was difficult to know whether they were 

 signalling each other or signalling themselves. The con- 

 clusion we came to was that such a chance for practice 

 was too good to be neglected, apart from the impression 

 which such a display of maritime erudition would be likely 

 to produce upon ourselves. Our conjecture upon this point 

 seemed to be correct, the results being evidently less in- 

 structive to them than amusing to ourselves ; for, when the 

 officer boarded us, he expressed the greatest surprise on 

 being informed that we had already been " spoken " by the 

 Admiral's pinnace, and only the production of his pre- 

 decessor's " chit " could convince him of the fact. He then 

 left us, the signalling still proceeding furiously. Altogether 

 we could not help being amused, though it is difficult to 

 laugh at a people with so many elements of greatness in 

 their character. A navy must have a beginning, like every- 

 thing else ; and, although our own was so familiar a part 

 of our history as to seem lost in the mists of time, we 

 might here see the inception of what might become as 

 integral a portion of Japan's future greatness as ours was, 

 and had been in the past. However amusing some of the 

 things they did might appear to us, it was impossible to 

 shut our eyes to the keen determination to master and 

 assimilate all that was best in Western progress and 

 civilisation that lay at the back of all their endeavours. 



Not fourteen years had yet elapsed since the great 

 European Powers had wrested from their unwilling hands 

 the concession of Yokohama as a treaty port, and already 

 this hitherto most isolated and conservative of nations had 

 thrown out tentacles in the form of bands of students into 

 all parts of the world. 



