ear in Yeddo, and the other
half at their country places. The Supreme Council of State appears to
be in a great measure named by the Daimios, and the recent change of
Government is supposed to have been a triumph of the protectionist or
anti-foreign party. There is no luxury or extravagance in any class.
No jewels or gold ornaments even at Court; but the nobles have
handsome palaces, and large bodies of retainers. A perfectly paternal
government; a perfectly filial people; a community entirely self-
supporting; peace within and without; no want; no ill-will between
classes. This is what I find in Japan in the year 1858, after one
hundred years' exclusion of foreign trade and foreigners. Twenty years
hence, what will be the contrast?

_August 27th._--Here I am at sea again. It is 9 P.M. I have just been
on deck. A lovely moon, nearly full, gliding through cloudless blue,
spangled here and there with bright twinkling stars. I begin to feel
as if at last I was really on my way home. Both my treaties are made,
and I am steering westwards! Is it so or am I to meet some great
disappointment when I reach China? I feel a sort of terror when I
contemplate my return to that place. My trip to Japan has been a green
spot in the desert of my mission to the East.

[Sidenote: A temple.]
[Sidenote: A juggler.]

But I must tell you how I have been spending my days since the 22nd,
when I last added a word to this letter. On the afternoon of that day,
I had a long sitting with the Japanese Plenipotentiaries, and we went
over the clauses of the Treaty which we had not reached on the
previous day. On the 23rd they returned, and we agreed finally on all
the articles. It was also settled that the signature should take place
on the 26th (the very day two months after the signature of the Treaty
of Tientsin), and that the delivery of the yacht should take place on
the same day; the Japanese agreeing to salute the British flag with
twenty-one guns from their batteries--a proceeding unheard of in
Japan. On the 24th, we took a ride into the country, in the opposite
direction to our former ride. We passed through a long suburb on the
shore of the sea, and eventually emerged into a rural district, rich
and neat as that we had formerly visited; but as the country was flat,
it was hardly so interesting. The object o