After remaining three weeks at Shimoda, which soon after was made an imperial city, the sailing-vessels departed for Hakodate, followed a few days after by the steamers. Of the island of Ōshima, near the entrance of the bay of Yedo, and close to which the “Powhatan” passed, the “Tribune” correspondent gives the following description:

“About noon we were within three miles of the island of Ōshima, and had a fine opportunity of observing the traces of volcanic action which it presents. The whole island is one immense volcano, the top of which has fallen in and formed a great basin, which incessantly belches forth white smoke and ashes. The edges of the crater are black, as if charred by fire, and on the southwestern side of the island a stream of lava reaches from the summit to the sea. Some large crevices continue still smoking, and others are filled with ashes. A bluff near the sea, about two hundred feet high, appears to be of recent formation, for the bushes and trees along the edges of the lava have a yellow, burnt appearance. The slopes of the mountain are covered with luxuriant vegetation; and there are two towns, one on a narrow table-land, and the other on the top of a steep cliff, near a suspicious-looking crater. There is said to be a third village on the northwestern side of the island.”[125]

Of Hakodate, in the island of Matsumae, already known to us by Golownin’s description, which the squadron visited in the month of May, the same letter affords the following account:

“Hakodate is another Gibraltar. It has the same long, low isthmus, ending in the same mighty rock, with another city sitting at its feet. The bay is seven or eight miles wide, with an entrance of two or three miles in width; it is deep enough for ships-of-the-line to approach within a mile of the shore, and its clayey bottom, free from rocks or shoals, affords excellent anchorage, while it is defended from the sea by a sand-bank, a prolongation of the isthmus. Behind the bay the land is quite level, but at the distance of six or eight miles it rises into a range of hills from one to three thousand feet high. These hills, still covered with snow, send down several streams to the bay, furnishing the best of water for ships. The plain is finely cultivated, and fishing villages line the shore. We took fish plentifully,—one day twenty buckets, with more than twenty fine salmon, some weighing fifteen pounds.

“The city has, I should guess, about four thousand houses, and perhaps five times as many inhabitants. The two main streets are parallel, and run along the foot of the mountain. Narrower streets run from the wharves up the mountain, crossing both the principal streets, one of which is about thirty feet higher than the other. The lower of these is almost as broad as Broadway, and infinitely cleaner. The houses on it are well built; most of them have two stories, with shops on the ground floor. The manner of building reminds one very strongly of Switzerland. A flat, projecting roof is covered with shingles, which are fastened by long poles, with stones laid upon them; broad galleries run quite around the upper story; before the door is a little wooden porch; this, too, with projecting gable, which, as well as the pillars that support it, are often adorned with rich carving. The temples, one of which is at least two hundred and fifty feet square, are profusely ornamented with carvings. Dragons, horses, bulls, and hares figure largely, but tortoises and cranes carry the day.”

From Hakodate, where the intercourse with the local officials was entirely satisfactory, the ships returned to Shimoda, where, according to an appointment previously made, the commodore met the four commissioners, and three new ones, with whom he proceeded to negotiate the following Additional Regulations:

Another important matter, in which the Japanese seem entirely to have carried the day, was the settlement of the value of the American coins to be received in payment for goods and supplies—a subject referred to a commission composed of two United States pursers and nine Japanese.

The Japanese circulating medium was found to consist of old kas, round, with a square hole in the middle, like the Chinese cash, but thinner, and containing more iron; of four-kas pieces, in weight equal to less than two of the others, probably, Kämpfer’s double zeni; but principally of a new coin rated at one hundred kas,—apparently a substitute for the strings of kas mentioned by Kämpfer and others. These are oval-shaped pieces of copper, about the size and shape of a longitudinal section of an egg, introduced within a recent period, and weighing only as much as seven of the old kas (or, compared with our cents, a little less than two of them). This over-valuation has, of course, driven the old kas out of circulation, and made this depreciated coin the integer of the currency. At the same time, it has raised the nominal value of everything, as is evident in the case of silver and gold. Instead of one thousand kas to the tael of silver, the rate in former times, the government, which appears to have the monopoly of the mines, sells silver bullion for manufacturing use at two thousand two hundred and fifty kas for the tael,—a rate fixed probably under some less depreciated state of the currency. But when coined, a tael’s weight of silver is reckoned in currency at six thousand four hundred kas, that is, at six tael and four mas, or precisely the valuation, in Kämpfer’s time, of the gold koban; and as the ichibu of his day, that is, one fourth part, as the word signifies in Japanese, represented sixteen hundred kas in real weight of silver, so the ichibu of the present day, of which there is both a silver and a gold one, represents sixteen hundred kas of currency. The bullion price of gold in Japan is only eight and a half times that of silver instead of sixteen times, as with us; while in currency the difference in value is only about as one to three and a half, the price in silver, or copper hundred-kas pieces, of a tael’s weight of gold bullion being nineteen taels, and the same when coined passing as twenty-three taels, seven mas and five kanderin. Besides the gold ichibu, the Japanese are represented as having three other gold coins, thin, oval pieces, of the currency value respectively of one, ten, and twenty taels;[126] also a coin, made of gold and silver, worth half an ichibu, or eight hundred-kas pieces, and a small silver piece, worth a quarter of an ichibu, or four hundred-kas pieces.

The Japanese commissioners insisted that our coin was but bullion to them, the effect of which is to put our silver dollar, so far as payments in Japan are concerned, precisely on a level with their silver ichibu, which weighs only one third as much. Our gold coins, compared with their gold coins, stand better, the relative weight of our gold dollar and their gold ichibu being as 65.33 to 52.25; but as the copper hundred-kas piece is their standard, and as its value in relation to gold is rated so much higher than with us, our gold dollar, estimated in this way, becomes worth only eight hundred and thirty-six kas, or little more than eight and a third hundred-kas pieces, or not much more than half an ichibu; the effect of all which is to give the Japanese government, through whose hands all payments are made, a profit, after recoinage, of sixty-six per cent, upon all payments in American coin. As the Japanese commissioners would not depart from this scheme, the commission dissolved without coming to any agreement on this point. But the supplies furnished to the squadron were paid for at the rate insisted upon by the Japanese; nor can private traders, as matters stand, expect any better terms.

The rates of pilotage at Shimoda were fixed at fifteen dollars for vessels drawing over eighteen feet, five dollars for vessels drawing less than thirteen feet, and ten dollars for those of intermediate size; only half of these rates to be paid in case of anchorage in the outer harbor. Water was to be furnished at fourteen hundred kas the boat-load, the ship finding casks. Wood was to be delivered on board at seven thousand two hundred kas per cube of five American feet.

The price put by the Japanese upon a few tons of inferior coal, brought to Shimoda, amounted, at their rate of exchange, to twenty-eight dollars the ton. It did not appear that coal was anywhere else mined except at the spot visited by Kämpfer and Siebold near Kokura, and another mine in the province of Awa, in the island Shikoku.

The business thus completed, a parting entertainment was given on board the “Mississippi”; and, after an interchange of presents, the vessels on the 26th of June took their departure. Stopping at Lew Chew, Commodore Perry negotiated a compact with the authorities of that island, which, from all the information he could obtain, he concluded to be a nearly independent sovereignty.

Within fifteen days after Commodore Perry’s departure from Shimoda, the clipper ship “Lady Pierce,” from San Francisco, fitted out for the express purpose of being the first American ship to arrive in Japan after the opening of commercial relations, entered the bay of Yedo, with the owner, Silas E. Burrows, on board.

He had with him a Japanese seaman, the sole survivor of a crew of fifteen men, belonging to a junk which had been blown out to sea, and was picked up near the Sandwich Islands, after having drifted about for seven months. This man, who is represented as quite intelligent, and who had resided for some time at San Francisco, was received with lively demonstrations of pleasure by his countrymen.

With a party of the Uraga officials on board, the “Lady Pierce” proceeded to within ten miles of Yedo, and her owners expressed a desire to anchor off that city; but this was objected to by the officers, who said, “It is not good; Commodore Perry did not go there, and we hope you will not.”

During the stay of the vessel, every part of her was crowded with visitors; and although at one time there must have been several thousands in and around the ship, and although everything, silverware included, was thrown open to their inspection, not a single article was stolen.

Large presents of silk, porcelain, lackered ware, etc., were made to Mr. Burrows, who, however, was informed that henceforward no foreign intercourse would be permitted with Yedo, but that all vessels must proceed either to Shimoda or Hakodate. Mr. Burrows himself proceeded to Shimoda, but does not seem to have formed a very high idea of the prospects of trade there.[127]

On the 18th of September, the steam-frigate “Susquehanna” again appeared at Shimoda, on her way home via the Sandwich Islands, followed on the 21st by the “Mississippi”; three days after which, the “Susquehanna” left, and the “Mississippi” on the 1st of October. The reception given to the officers of both ships was very cordial, and their intercourse both with officials and the towns-people was almost entirely free from any marks of that restraint and apparent suspicion exhibited on former occasions. Besides an interchange of visits and dinners, several Japanese officials attended, on a Sunday, divine service on board the “Susquehanna.”

“Many of us,” writes an officer of the “Mississippi,” “entered houses very frequently, and sat down with the people to smoke or drink tea. One day the sound of a guitar attracted me, and I found an olive girl, of some fifteen or sixteen years, who, not perceiving my presence, continued her play. It was a strange tune, wild and melancholy, and often abruptly interrupted by harsh accords. After a while some women that had assembled around us made the girl aware of my presence; she threw down her instrument and began to cry, and I could not induce her to play again. The guitar was made of wood, with the exception of the upper lid. Of the three strings, two were in the octave, the middle one giving the fifth. The strings were not touched by the fingers, but with a flat piece of horn, held between the thumb and third finger of the right hand, in shape not unlike the one painters use to clean their palettes and mix their colors.

“On another occasion I heard a young man playing a flute. This instrument was of the most primitive description, consisting only of a piece of hollow bamboo, bored with seven finger-holes, and the hole for the mouth. The tunes were very strange, and appeared to me more like a mass of confused sounds, than a regular harmony.[128]

“At the beginning of the new moon, I saw in several houses a sort of domestic worship. A number of women had assembled before the shrine of the household god, and, divided in two parties, were singing hymns, one party alternately answering the other. Their song was accompanied by strokes upon a little bell or gong, with a small wooden hammer; and, as the bells were of different tones, the effect was by no means unpleasant.”

“There are a number of temples near Shimoda,” writes an officer of the “Susquehanna,” “and attached to each is a graveyard. At one of these, situated near a village, there is a place set apart for Americans. Here Dr. Hamilton was buried, being laid by the side of two others who had died on the second visit of the ships. Each grave has its appropriate stone, as with us, and by many of them are evergreens set in vases, or joints of bamboo, containing water. Cups of fresh water are also set by the graves, and to these, birds of dazzling plumage and delightful song come and drink. The graves of the Americans were not forgotten.”

The officers were permitted to go into the country any distance they wished, and the country people were found pleasant and sociable; but upon this second visit the advantages of Shimoda as a place of trade, or the prospects of traffic under the treaty, do not seem to have struck the visitors very favorably. “The harbor,” writes an officer of the “Susquehanna” to the “Tribune,” “is a small indentation of land, running northeast and southwest, about a half-mile in extent, and is capable of holding five or six vessels of ordinary size. It is, however, entirely unprotected from the southwest winds, which bring with them a heavy sea, and which renders the anchorage very unsafe. With the wind from the north and the east, the vessel rides at her ease at her anchorage. Good wood and sweet water, as well as a few provisions, were obtained from the authorities, for the use of the ships, at the most extravagant prices. Numerous articles, such as lackered and China ware, of a very fine and delicate quality, and far superior to that manufactured in China, were purchased by the officers; but every article had to pass through the hands of the Japanese officers, and the amount due the merchants had to be paid, not to them but to the Japanese officials who had been appointed for that very purpose by the mayor of the city and the governor of the province. This article of the treaty will be most scrupulously enforced; and this is decidedly its worst feature.”

“Shimoda,” writes another officer, “does not appear well calculated, upon the whole, for a place of trade, and it can never become an active commercial town. Neither is it a manufacturing town. This, added to the fact that the harbor is a bad one, will make it appear evident that the Japanese commissioners got the better of us in the treaty, as far as this place is concerned.

“The surrounding country (wherever nature will permit it) is highly cultivated. The valley of the creek is broad and well tilled, yielding rice, millet, Egyptian corn and maize.[129] The ears produced by the last are very small, being not more than from two to four inches in length. Sweet potatoes and the eggplant are also raised in great abundance. There are no horses about Shimoda, and bullocks are made to supply their places. Provisions, with the exception of eggs and vegetables, cannot be obtained here. The shark and bonito are the only large fish found in the harbor. Small fish are plentiful, and they seem to form almost the only article of food of the inhabitants, besides rice.”

The following description of the houses at Shimoda, by Mr. S. Wells Williams, will serve to illustrate the descriptions of Japanese houses already given from Kämpfer and Thunberg, and will show how little, as to that matter, Japan has altered since their time:

“The houses in Shimoda are built merely of pine boards, or of plaster thickly spread over a wattled wall of laths, the interstices of which are filled in with mud. In some cases these modes of construction are combined—the front and rear being of boards, or sliding panels, and the sides of mud. When thoroughly dried, the mud is whitewashed, and the plain surface worked into round ridges, three inches high, crossing each other diagonally from the roof to the ground; the ridges are then washed blue, and give the exterior a checker-board look, which, though singular, is more lively than a blue mud wall. The plaster is excellent, and these walls appear very solid and rather pretty when new; at a distance one would even think them to be stone; but after a few years the ridges loosen, the rain insinuates itself beneath the outer coating, and the whole begins to scale and crack off, disclosing the mud and rushes, and then the tenement soon falls to pieces. Still the progress of decay is not so rapid as one would think, judging only by the nature of the materials, and the walls are well protected by the projecting eaves. No bricks are used in building, nor are square tiles for floors seen; and the manner of making walls common in southern China, by beating sanded clay into wooden moulds, is unknown.

“Some of the best houses and temples have stone foundations, a few only of which are made of dressed stone. Half a dozen or more storehouses occur, faced entirely with slabs of stone, and standing detached from other buildings, and are doubtless fire-proof buildings. There are no cellars under the houses; the floors are raised on sleepers only two feet above the beaten ground, and uniformly covered with straw mats stuffed with chaff, or grass an inch thick. The frames are of pine, the joists four or five inches square, and held together by the flooring of the attic, as well as the plates and ridge-pole. The houses and shops join each other on the sides, with few exceptions, leaving the front and rear open. There is no uniformity in the width of the lots, the fronts of some shops extending twenty, thirty, or more feet along the street, while intermediate ones are mere stalls not over ten feet wide.

“The shops succeed each other without any regular order as to their contents, those of the same sort not being arranged together, as is often the case in China. The finer wares are usually kept in drawers, so that, unless one is well acquainted with the place, he cannot easily find the goods he seeks. The eaves of the houses project about four feet from the front and are not over eight feet from the ground; the porch thus made furnishes a covered place for arranging crockery, fruits, etc., for sale, trays of trinkets on a movable stall, baskets of grain, or other coarse articles, to attract buyers. The entrance is on one side, and the path leads directly through to the rear. The wooden shutters of shops are all removed in the daytime, and the paper windows closed, or thrust aside, according to the weather. On a pleasant day the doors are open, and in lieu of the windows a screen is hung midway so as to conceal the shopman and his customer from observation, while those goods placed on the stand are still under his eye. A case, with latticed or wire doors, to contain the fine articles of earthen ware, a framework, with hooks and shelves, to suspend iron utensils or wooden ware, or a movable case of drawers, to hold silks, fine lackered ware, or similar goods, constitute nearly all the furniture of the shops. Apothecaries’ shops are hung with gilded signs and paper placards, setting forth the variety and virtues of their medicines, some of which are described as brought from Europe. The partition which separates the shop from the dwelling is sometimes closed, but more usually open; and a customer has, generally speaking, as much to do with the mistress as the master of the establishment. When he enters, his straw sandals are always left on the ground as he steps on the mats and squats down to look at the goods, which are then spread out on the floor. A foreigner has need of some thoughtfulness in this particular, as it is an annoyance to a Japanese to have his mats soiled by dirty feet, or broken through by coarse shoes.

“The rear of the building is appropriated to the family. Here the domestic operations are all carried on; here the family take their meals in the day; here, on the same mats, do they sleep at night; receiving visitors and dressing the children are also done here, and sometimes the cooking too. Usually this latter household task is performed in the porch in the rear, or in an out-house, so that the inmates are not so much annoyed with smoke as they are in Hakodate. No arrangements for warming the dwelling are to be found, except that of hand-braziers placed in the middle of the room with lighted charcoal, around which the family gather. In most of the houses there is a garret, reached by a ladder,—a dark and small apartment, where some goods can be stored, or servants can be lodged. There is not a house in the town whose occupants have arranged this attic with windows and stairways to make it a pleasant room; a few such were, however, seen near the capital, at Kanagawa, and in its vicinity.

“The roofs of all the best buildings are hipped, and covered with bluish tiling, each tile being about eight inches square, shaped somewhat like a wedge; the thick side is so made that, when laid on the rafters, it laps sideways over the thin edge of the adjoining tile in the next row, and thus forms gutters somewhat like the Chinese roofs. They are washed in alternate rows of white and blue, which, with the checkered walls, imparts a lively aspect, and contrasts pleasantly with the more numerous dingy thatched roofs. The thatched roofs are made of a species of Arundo, grown and prepared for this purpose, and answering admirably as a cheap and light covering to the wooden tenements occupied by most of the people. It is matted into a compact mass eighteen inches thick, as it is laid on, and then the surface and the sides are neatly sheared. The ridge-pole is protected by laying the thatch over a row of hoops that enclose it enough to overlap the edges on both slopes, and prevent the rain finding entrance. One cannot feel surprise at the ravages fires make in Japanese towns, where the least wind must blow the flame upon such straw coverings, which, like a tinder-box, would ignite at the first spark. Wires are stretched along the ridges of some of the tiled roofs in Shimoda to prevent birds from resting on the houses.

“In the rear yards, attached to a large number of the dwellings, are out-houses, and sometimes, as in the lodging-houses, additional sleeping-rooms. Kitchen-gardens are not unfrequently seen, and more rarely fancy fish-ponds, dwarfed trees, and even stone carvings. A family shrine, made like a miniature house, containing images of penates and lares, is met with in most of the yards. Only a few of them are adorned with large trees, and still fewer of them exhibit marks of care or taste, presenting in this respect an observable contrast to the neatness of the houses. High hedges or stone walls separate these yards when they are contiguous, but the depth of the lots is usually insufficient to allow room for both the opposite dwellings the luxury of a garden.

“There is not much variety in the structure of the various buildings in Shimoda, and their general appearance denotes little enterprise or wealth. The paper windows and doors, not a few of them dirty and covered with writing, or torn by children to take a peep inside, impart a monotonous aspect to the streets. Dyers’, carpenters’, blacksmiths’, stone-cutters’, and some other shops, have latticed fronts to admit more light, which are elevated above the observation of persons passing by. In front of those dwellings occupied by officials, a white cotton curtain, three feet wide, is stretched along the whole length of the porch, having the coat of arms of the occupant painted on it in black; the names of the principal lodgers are also stuck on the door-posts. Signs are mostly written on the doors, as the windows are drawn aside during the day; but only a portion of the shops have any. Lodging-houses, barbers’ shops, restaurants, or tea-houses, apothecaries, and a few others, are almost always indicated by signs. One dealer in crockery and lackered ware has the sign of a celebrated medicine placed on a high pole, and, the more to attract attention, has written the name in foreign letters. As in China, placards for medicines were the most conspicuous of all, but none are pasted upon blank walls; all are suspended in the shops. However, no dwelling or shop is left unprotected from the ill-usage of malignant spirits, every one having a written or printed charm or picture (sometimes a score or more) over the door to defend the inmates from evil.”

In the interval between Commodore Perry’s first and second visits to the bay of Yedo, Nagasaki was visited by a Russian squadron. On the 7th of September, 1854, just before the last visit of the “Mississippi” and “Susquehanna” to Shimoda, a British squadron of three steamers and a frigate arrived at Nagasaki under Admiral Sterling. These British vessels, which found the annual Dutch trading-ship, two large Chinese junks, also a Dutch steamer, lying in the harbor, encountered the usual reception, being served with notices, surrounded with boats, and denied liberty to land. At length, however, after a deal of negotiation and threats to proceed to Yedo, it was agreed to furnish supplies, tea, rice, pigs, etc., and to receive payment through the Dutch. On the 15th the admiral landed, and was conducted in state to the governor’s house. The guard-boats were withdrawn, and the men were allowed to land on an island to recreate themselves. Other interviews followed, presents were interchanged, and, on the 19th, the squadron left. These particulars are drawn from the published letter of a medical officer on board, who describes the supplies furnished as very good, and the Japanese soy as cheap and nice, but who does not seem to have relished the sake, which he likens in taste to acetate of ammonia water.

The American war-steamer “Powhatan” visited Shimoda February 21, 1855, to complete the exchange of ratification, which done, she sailed again two days after. The town of Shimoda was found in a state of desolation and ruin, from the effects of a disastrous earthquake, on the 23d of December previous, in which the Russian frigate “Diana,” then lying in the harbor to complete the pending negotiations, was so damaged as to have sunk in attempting to make a neighboring port for repairs. Ōsaka and Yedo were reported to have suffered severely, and Yedo still more from a subsequent fire.