CHAPTER XVI. 
Arrival at Yokohama—A Telegram sent to Europe—The stranding of the 
steamer A. E. NordensJciold—Fetes in Japan—The‘Minister of Marine, 
Kawamura—Prince Kito-Shira-Kava—Audience of the Mikado—Graves 
of the Shoguns—Imperial Garden at Tokio—The Exhibition there— 
Visit to Enoshima—Japanese manners and customs—Thunberg and 
Kampfer. 
Yokohama, the first harbour, telegraph station, and commercial 
town at which the Vega anchored after circumnavigating the 
north coast of Asia, is one of the Japanese coast cities which 
were opened to the commerce of the world after the treaty 
between the United States of America and Japan negotiated by 
Commodore Peery.^ At this place there was formerly only 
a little fishing village, whose inhabitants had never seen Europeans 
and were forbidden under severe punishments from entering into 
communication or trading with the crews of the foreign vessels 
that might possibly visit the coast. The former village is 
now, twenty years later, changed into a town of nearly 70,000 
inhabitants, and consists not only of Japanese, but also of very 
fine European houses, shops, hotels, &c. It is also the residence 
of the governor of Kanagava JVen. It is in communication 
by rail with the neighbouring capital Tokio, by regular weekly 
1 The Dutch had permission in former times to send some vessels 
annually to Nagasaki. By Perry’s treaty, signed on the 31st March, 1854, 
Shimoda and Hakodate were opened to the Americans. Finally, by new 
treaties with the United States and various European powers, the harbours 
Kanagava (Yokohama), Nagasaki, Hakodate, Niigata, Hiogo, and Osaka, 
were assigned for commerce with foreigners. 
