Also in the neighbourhood of the colony
the volcanic rock-masses are under-stratified by thick sandy beds. ]

[Footnote 371: The first European who welcomed us after the
completion of the North-east passage was a Fin now settled in
California, from Bjoerkboda works in Kimito parish, in which I had
lived a great deal when a youth. He was sent by the Alaska Company
to do some work on Behring Island. As we steamed towards the
colony he rowed to meet us, and saluted us with the cry "ar det
Nordenskioeld?" ("Is it Nordenskioeld?") His name was Isak Andersson. ]

CHAPTER XVI.

Arrival at Yokohama--A Telegram sent to Europe--The stranding
of the steamer _A.E. Nordenskioeld_--_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 Kaempfer.

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 PERRY.[372] 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 _Ken_. It is in communication
by rail with the neighbouring capital Tokio, by regular weekly
steamship sailings with San Francisco on the one hand, and Hong
Kong, India, &c., on the other, and finally by telegraph not only
with the principal cities of Japan but also with all the lands that
have got entangled in the threads of the world's telegraph net.

The situation of the town on the western shore of the Yedo or Tokio
Bay, which is perhaps rather large for a haven, is not particularly
fine. But on sailing in we see in the west, if the weather be fine,
Fusiyama's snow-clad, incomparably beautiful volcanic cone raise
itself from a cultivated forest-cla