128 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



You will not remain at Port Lloyd beyond the 28th, or, at farthest, the 30th instant ; and 

 will then proceed, on your return, to the port of Simoda, in Japan — one of those assigned by 

 treaty as a place of resort for American vessels. 



If you can obtain at the islands large or limited supplies of pigs, turtle, vegetables, or fruit, 

 for the use of the squadron, you will procure what can be conveniently spared by the settlers. 

 When at the Bonins, in June last, I caused to be landed some bullocks, sheep, goats, and 

 pigs, for breeding ; and it is my desire that you will give strict orders forbidding the destruc- 

 tion of any of those animals upon either of the islands, as it is important that they should be 

 left to multiply for some future object; nor will you allow the wild goats belonging to the set- 

 tlers on the adjacent islands to be disturbed. 



_I send a few implements of husbandry to be distributed under your supervision to Nathaniel 

 Saver y, and others of the most industrious and exemplary of the settlers ; also some seeds. 



During your stay at the island, if time allows, you will make such observations and collec- 

 tions in the various branches of natural history as may be practicable. 



Wishing you a pleasant cruise, I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 



M. C. PERRY, 

 Cormnander-in-cMef U. S. naval forces, East India, China, and Japan seas. 

 Captain Joel Abbot, 



Commanding If. S. ship Macedonian. 



Report of Captain Abbot to Commodore Perry. 



U. S. Ship Macedonian, 

 Simoda, Island of Niphon, Japan, May 2, 1854. 



Sir : In obedience to your orders of the 10th ultimo, for objects therein stated, I sailed the 

 next morning in-the U. S. ship Macedonian, under my command, for a brief cruise to the Bonin 

 Islands, and back to Japan. In the performance of which, I have to report that I did not arrive 

 at Port Lloyd until the afternoon of the 20th April, owing to bad weather, a rough sea, and 

 strong currents. 



Immediately on leaving the passage between Oho-sima and Cape King, there seemed to be a 

 strong northeasterly current, and for two days there was every appearance of a gulf stream 

 similar to that on our own coast near Cape Hatteras ; the water, however, is not so warm by 

 about 10 degrees, on an average, as the G-ulf stream on the coast of the United States. The sea 

 was very rough und irregular, boiling up, as it were, into heaps, and there was a continual 

 hissing and roar of tide-rips — a perfect chow-chow, as a Chinaman would say. The weather 

 was thick, stormy, and squally, and the wind very irregular — all round the compass — suddenly 

 shifting from one side to the other, and taking the ship aback. Various whirlwinds were seen; 

 one came near to us, and raised the water into a white foam as it passed along. Its extent and 

 compass was small. I should judge there had just been a very heavy rotary gale. There was 

 a rough, turbulent, agitated swell, nearly all the way to the Bonin Islands, and the winds very 

 variable ; and off those islands the current set very strong — sometimes to the northward and 

 eastward, and sometimes to the southward and westward ; the latter the most prevalent, I 

 should think. The weather was such, after leaving the Japan coast, as to afford no reliable 

 data upon which to determine the breadth or bounds of the stream, or the exact velocity and 



