fifty feet; a well laid out road twenty feet
wide, with hedges on each side, and apparently
leading into the country, promised us good
views of rural life, and we accordingly
followed it. The ditches on each side, the
flowery banks, the willows growing in the
hedgerows, all reminded us of home scenery,
and the thatched cottages gleaming here and
there at intervals were Englishlike. The
proprietors, dressed in long grey robes, and
sandals of straw or high wooden clogs, were
rosy-cheeked, fat, and civil; and numberless
healthy children ran out of every door to look
at the Englishee, and were generally
accompanied by large white dogs, vociferous in the
extreme. A tall, grey-bearded peasant came
out of his house to meet us, and, with great
courtesy of manners, invited us into it;
unfortunately, this was forbidden by the port
regulations, so that we contented ourselves
with a glance at the comfortable interior,
where a bright charcoal fire glowed, and on
the raised and matted dais near it was an
elderly dame busied in household offices.
The straight, level roads, the divisions of
property, the separate yet contiguous cottages,
the mild politeness of the peasantry, and their
sombre grey robes, reminded me of the happy
domestic scenery of Lower Canada;
picturesque churches were, however, wanted to
complete the illusion. We had not proceeded
far on the road when a stout elderly peasant
joined us; and, good-naturedly pointing to a
brawling stream, led us to its bank. He was
a disciple of the gentle art. On our return to
the road, and resuming our pace along it, the
robust native accompanied us for a short
space, until we approached a comfortable-
looking cottage, into which he endeavoured
to persuade us to enter, adding the inducement
of drinking saki; the invitation was
necessarily declined and we continued to
stroll on. Presently, the wind being chilly,
we asked the interpreter to go his own pace,
and told him that we would return by the
same road; and then stepped out for the first
good walk we had had for many weeks. We
could hardly imagine that the rural scene
around us, through which we were enjoying
a tête-à-tête unaccompanied by escorts, and
one of us unarmed, the other with a light
uniform sword, were in the jealously-guarded
Japanese islands, and the politeness with
which all who met us saluted completely
reassured us."

So far all is in the highest degree promising ;
but, although good is spoken of this people
on all hands, it is with the government and
not the people that we have to deal ; and,
among the government officials, there is a
restrictive party and a liberal party—an old
Japan and a new Japan. If it be new Japan
at Hakodadi, it is, beyond question, old
Japan at Nagasaki. There, our sailors had
no liberty to walk about, were kept to the
terms of the treaty ; which, in Japanese strictness,
guards and counterguards every concession,
till it may be interpreted into the
weakest moonshine. English negotiators, not
Americans, had paved the way at Nagasaki,
and had so blundered, that their successors
must submit, as they did on occasions of
audience with the governor, to eat the sweetmeats
taken to them in the waiting-chamber,
instead of sitting with their hosts and
experiencing, as at Hakodadi, all the refinement
of true Eastern courtesy. Again, when our
naval officers are admitted to the high and
mighty presence of the governor of
Nagasaki, he and his companions keep their seats;
nor do they rise to bow to the queen's
representatives when they depart. Incivility and
ill blood have been bred out of a too weakly
conciliatory demeanour in our own especial
port. By maintaining a firm self-respect as
the backbone of courtesy, American officers
have obtained, as we have said, at Hakodadi,
for themselves and us who follow them, goodwill
and high consideration. It was at Nagasaki
that the Russian negotiator was long
trifled with; but changing his tactics, in the
summer of eighteen hundred and fifty-four,
he visited ports nearer Jeddo, and at last
close to the Gulf of Jeddo itself. By persistence
in his wishes he obtained the most
useful treaty yet accorded by the rulers of
Japan; for it is believed of this treaty, that
it gives power to the Russians to send
consuls to the ports, who are to be allowed to have
chapels for worship according to their own
ritual; that it stipulates for the provision, by
the Japanese, of houses of recreation for the
Russian sailors, while at the same time it
procures for Russian officers and merchants
right of free intercourse with the people.
Secret articles of the same treaty are
supposed to settle the boundary between Russia
and Japan in the large northern island of
Sagalien, and to promise to the Emperor of
Japan protection against any attack from
other western nations.

The Russian passion for extended boundary
is as distinctly shown in the far east as in the
west. Until some time after the breaking
out of war, we did indeed suppose that
Russia claimed some of the Kurile islands;
but we did not know—what is now shown to
be the case, and was indeed ascertained by
the expedition, of which Captain Whittingham
relates some of the doings—that Russian
encroachment has already crept down over
the northern half of the great fertile coal-
yielding island Sagalien, one of the largest of
the islands of Japan, inhabited by a fine race of
sturdy bearded men, whom our authority
admires as nobler-looking savages than the Red
Indians. They live chiefly on sun-dried fish
and seals; worship bears, which they keep
caged in their villages; and are a kindly race.
The officials from the central government of
Japan had even retired from the southern
part of this island; but returned on the
evacuation by the Russians of some positions
that they had taken up before the war. For