1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 117 



for full two score miles does the enchanting panorama of the 

 placid bay of Yedo attend you, even through the bold- 

 beaconed bluffs at its portal, the veritable " rock-gate of 

 heaven." Here, as your ship bravely sets her prow toward 

 America, you turn back for a last lingering look toward the 

 vanishing scenes astern. 



Through the long, the almost sad waning of the day, the 

 rugged coast-line sinks, the sharp outlines of the mountain 

 masses are dimmed by increasing distance, growing more 

 and more shadowy, until at length only great solitary Fuji, 

 the "matchless mountain," is distinguishable above the 

 cloud-land in which all forms are lost. 



It seems a mighty symbol of the nation's being, above 

 whose mythical foundation and source — now shrouded in 

 the mists and shadows of time and tradition — appear the 

 outlines of a history towering up through the ages into 

 the clear atmosphere of present knowledge. And, ere the 

 symbol fades from view, a radiant halo of sunset splendor 

 bursts up through the mists and clouds about it, gilding the 

 sharply truncated summit, — the same sun that even then is 

 quickening the earnest life of a higher civilization in the 

 West, seeming to hold out to the people of this the hope and 

 promise of a brighter and better moral, social and political 

 life than had been conceived in that first great volume of 

 their history, the close of which our day has witnessed. 



Adjourned to Wednesday, at 9.30. 



