A day to go, a day to come, and one intervening to cross the lake and ascend the volcano, measured our excursion; through the whole of which we had sunny skies and exhilarating temperature till the last hour of our return, when a drizzling rain suggested what might have been our discomfort had the heavens above been as unpropitious as the roads beneath. Even the crossing of the lake and the ascent were particularly favored, the sky literally cloudless and water smooth; whereas the following morning, when we rose to depart, a fog had settled on the mountain, making movement upon it doubtful and even to a slight degree dangerous. The lake, some six miles by ten, and abounding in islets, lay smiling under the bright, wintry sun, its shores clad with leafless forests mingled with evergreens, save the barren slopes of the volcano itself; beneath the distant lava stream of which we were told seventeen hundred people lay, buried by the last eruption. The scene tempted me more than most to description, for the brilliant stillness of a clear November day, and the gaunt, bare trees, were strange to our long experience of verdure in southern Japan, and smacked strongly of home—Hakodate being in the latitude of New York; but, as always, the majority have their own vision, their own memory, of just such conditions and surroundings, more vivid for them than another's portrayal.
The two nights at the lake we slept in a Japanese tea-house, scrupulously clean and quite comfortable, but at that early date and remote region entirety primitive; I should rather say strictly native in all its arrangements. The kitchen was innocent of European suggestion; we ate with chopsticks, and fish from the lake were spitted and cooked around a fire in a sandy hearth, contrived below the middle of the room. Eggs were in abundance, but coffee was sorely missed at our chilly rising. At 9 A.M. we started for the volcano, getting back at 7 P.M. We landed at the foot of the lava stream and ascended by it through a picture of desolation. From shore to summit took us three hours, which confirmed to me a rough estimate of the height as about four thousand feet. The grade was not severe, some thirty or forty degrees; but by this time we had a brisk northwest wind blowing down our throats, and the latter part of the way our feet sank deep in volcanic dust. At the top the air was very cold, keen, and rare, but somewhat oppressive to the lungs. None of us cared to smoke, after eating and drinking, but the view afforded us was perfect; limitless, so far as atmospheric conditions went. In appearance the crater differed little, I presume, from others in a state of quiescence. Smoke and steam poured forth continually, in one spot in large volumes; while from many places issued little jets, such as puff from the out-door pipes of a factory, suggesting subterranean workmen. These were especially numerous from a large mound in the centre, which our guide told us was growing bigger and bigger with his successive visits, portending an outburst near. If his observation was accurate, it goes to show the coincident sympathetic movements which occur in volcanic regions remote from one another; for this year, 1868, followed one of great terrestrial disturbance. In 1867 two of our naval vessels had been carried ashore by a tidal wave in the West Indies; and of two others lying off Arica, Peru, one was dashed to pieces against the cliffs, while the other was carried over low, flat ground for a mile or so inland, where her dismantled hull was still lying when I was there in 1884.
Our starting when we did, as soon as possible, three days after arrival, justified the Nelsonian maxim not to trifle with a fair wind; for we just culled the three days which were the cream, and only cream, of our stay. From our return on the 6th, to sailing on the 12th, there was but one fair twenty-four hours—the rest from blustering to furious; and we went out with the promise of a gale which did not with evening "in the west sink smilingly forsworn." The Iroquois ran through Tsugaru Strait under canvas, with a barometer rather tumbling than falling, and an east wind fast freshening to heavy. We knew it must end at northwest; but it lasted till afternoon of the next day, so we got a good offing. The shift of the wind was in its accompaniments spectacular—and cyclonic. The morning of the 13th was among the wildest I have seen. Daylight came a half-hour late, with a lurid sky; the clouds, the confused, heaving water, the sails, spars, and deck of the ship herself, all as if seen in a Lorraine glass. It having become nearly calm, she lay thrashing aimlessly in the swell, unsteadied by the canvas. The barometer still fell slowly till two in the afternoon, when it stopped, and we began to look out.
"First rise, after very low
Indicates a stronger blow."
At three it rose one one-hundredth of an inch, and almost simultaneously, looking over the weather rail, was to be seen the oncoming northwester, never long in debt to a southeaster. First a gleaming white line of foam beneath the sombre horizon, gradually spreading to right and left, and visibly widening as it drew near. Soon its deepening surface broke to view into innumerable separate wave-crests, which advanced leaping in tumultuous accord, like the bounding rush of a pack of wolves, whom you may see, and whose howling you can imagine but do not yet hear. As Kingsley has said, "It looks so dangerous, and you are so safe"—all the thrill, yet none of the apprehension. The new gale struck the Iroquois in full force. Within twenty minutes it had reached its height, and so continued for near forty-eight hours, during thirty-six of which the hatches were battened down. For a time the two seas, the old and the new, fought each other to our discomfort; but the old yielded, and, as the new got its even, regular swing, the Iroquois agreed with its enemy of the moment and rode easily.
With our arrival at Shanghai we had left behind whatever in the cruise of the Iroquois could be considered exceptional as to incident; that is, while I remained with her. From December, 1868, we entered in China upon the usual routine of station movement; interesting enough at the time, but from which my memory retains nothing noteworthy. Subsequently we visited Formosa and Manila and Hong Kong; whence we were sent south for ten days to the Gulf of Hainan to search for a French corvette which had disappeared. We did not find her, nor was she again seen by mortal eyes. Returning to Hong Kong, we learned of the first election of General Grant to the presidency, and that a letter from him had reached the admiral asking that the captain of the flag-ship, who as a school comrade had once saved Grant's life, should be ordered home; the intention being to give him charge of an important bureau in the Navy Department. Under usual circumstances a relief would have been sent out; but as the request was from the expectant administration, not from the one still in power and antagonistic, a private letter was the chosen medium of action.
His departure made a vacancy, to which succeeded the captain of the Iroquois, a great favorite with the commander-in-chief. I was left in charge of the ship until we went back to Japan in May. There I fell ill at Nagasaki, and after recovery found myself at Yokohama, in command of a gunboat ordered to be sold. This consummation was reached in September, and I then started for home, having the admiral's permission to proceed by Suez to Europe, instead of by the usual route to San Francisco. My object was only to visit Europe; but on the way to Hong Kong a Parsee merchant, a fellow-passenger, suggested turning aside to India, which I had not contemplated. I shall not go into my brief India travel from Calcutta to Bombay, beyond mentioning the singular good-fortune, as it appeared to me, that I visited the ruined residence at Lucknow, and the remains of the memorable siege of twelve years before, in the company of an officer who had himself been a participant. His wife, still a very young and handsome woman, whom I had the pleasure of meeting, had been one of the children within the works, sharing the perils, if not the anxieties, of their mothers during that period of awful suspense.
Nor do I think my six months in Europe, leave for which met me on my arrival there, worthy of particular note, save in one incident which has always seemed to me curious. Landing at Marseilles, I found that intimate friends were then at Nice. I accordingly went there, instead of to Paris, as I had intended; and, like thoughtless young men everywhere, abandoned myself to pleasant society instead of to self-improvement by travel. My purpose, however, continually was to go directly to Paris when I did leave Nice, for my time was limited; but a middle-aged friend strongly dissuaded me. "You should by no means fail to visit Rome now," he said, "for, independently of the immortal interest of the place, of the treasures of association and of art which are its imperishable birthright, there is the more transient spectacle of the Papacy, in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of the temporal power. This may at any moment pass away, and you therefore may never have another opportunity to witness it in its glory. There is a vague traditional prophecy that, as St. Peter held the bishopric of Rome twenty-five years, any pope whose tenure exceeds his will see the downfall of the papal sovereignty over Rome. Such prophecies often insure their own fulfilment, and Pius IX. is now closely approaching his twenty-fifth year. Go while you can." So I went, in February, 1870; and before the next winter's snow the temporal power was a thing of the past.