Commodore Perry spent the remainder of the year on the coast of China, keeping one vessel, however, at Lew Chew, and prosecuting the survey of the Bonin Islands. Shortly after his visit, the Shōgun died, and an attempt was made to take advantage of that circumstance to delay or prevent the return of the American ships. A communication, forwarded to Batavia by the Dutch ship that left Nagasaki in November, and communicated by the Dutch governor-general at Batavia to the commodore, represented that the necessary mourning for the deceased sovereign, and other arrangements consequent on his death, as well as the necessity of consulting all the princes, must necessarily delay the answer to the president’s letter, and suggested the danger of confusion, or “broil,” should the squadron come back at so unseasonable a moment.
Undeterred, however, by this representation, on the 12th of February, 1854, Commodore Perry reappeared in the bay of Yedo, with three steam frigates, four sloops-of-war, and two store-ships, and the steamers taking the sailing vessels in tow, they all moved up to the American anchorage.
About two weeks were spent here in fixing upon a place to negotiate, the Japanese importuning the commodore to go back to Kamakura, twenty miles below Uraga, or, at least, to the latter place, while he insisted upon going to Yedo. As he declined to yield, and caused the channel to be sounded out within four miles of Yedo, they proposed, as the place of meeting, the village of Yokohama,[120] containing about ten thousand people, and situated on the shore, just opposite the anchorage of the ships. To this the commodore agreed, and the ships drew in and moored in line, with broadsides bearing upon the shore, and covering an extent of five miles.
“On the 8th of March,” says a letter dated on board the “Vandalia,” and published in the New York “Journal of Commerce,” “the day appointed for the first meeting, about nine hundred officers, seamen, and marines, armed to the teeth, landed, and, with drums beating and colors flying, were drawn up on the beach, ready to receive the commodore. As soon as he stepped on shore the bands struck up, salutes were fired, the marines presented arms, and, followed by a long escort of officers, he marched up between the lines and entered the house erected by the Japanese expressly for the occasion. Thousands of Japanese soldiers crowded the shore and the neighboring elevations, looking on with a good deal of curiosity and interest. The house was nothing but a plain frame building, hastily put up, containing one large room—the audience hall—and several smaller, for the convenience of attendants, etc. The floor was covered with mats, and very pretty painted screens adorned the sides. Long tables and benches, covered with red woollen stuff, placed parallel to each other, three handsome braziers, filled with burning charcoal, on the floor between them, and a few violet-colored crape hangings suspended from the ceiling, completed the furniture of the room. As we entered, we took our seats at one of the tables. The Japanese commissioners soon came in, and placed themselves opposite to us, at the other table; while behind us both, seated on the floor on their knees[121] (their usual position, for they do not use chairs), was a crowd of Japanese officers, forming the train of the commissioners.
“The business was carried on in the Dutch language, through interpreters, of whom they have several who speak very well, and two or three who speak a little English. They were on their knees, between the commissioners and the commodore. Our interpreter was seated by the side of the latter. It was curious to see the intolerable ceremony observed by them, quite humiliating to a democratic republican. A question proposed had to pass first through the interpreters, and then through several officers ascending in rank, before it could reach the commissioners, every one bowing his forehead to the floor before he addressed his superior. Refreshments were served in elegantly lackered dishes; first of all, tea, which, as in China, is the constant beverage; then different kinds of candy and sponge cake (they are excellent confectioners, and very fond of sugar); lastly, oranges and a palatable liquor distilled from rice, called sake. A flimsy banquet like this was not very agreeable to such hungry individuals as we, and we were the more disappointed, for, the Japanese using only chopsticks, we had, previously to coming ashore, taken the precaution, as we shrewdly thought, to provide ourselves with knives and forks. Imagine, then, our chagrin when finding nothing substantial upon which to employ them. What was left on our plates was wrapped in paper, and given to us to carry away, according to the usual custom in Japan.
“The commissioners were intelligent-looking men, richly dressed in gay silk petticoat pantaloons, and upper garments resembling in shape ladies’ short gowns. Dark-colored stockings, and two elegant swords pushed through a twisted silk girdle, finished the costume. Straw sandals are worn, but are always slipped off upon entering a house. They do not cover the head, the top and front part of which is shaved, and the back and side hair, being brought up, is tied so as to form a tail, three or four inches long, that extends forward upon the bald pate, terminating about half way between the apex and the forehead. It is a very comfortable fashion, and, were it not for the quantity of grease used in dressing it, would be a very cleanly one.
“Two audiences a week were held, at which the same programme was performed as related above, except that we fared more luxuriously.[122] Becoming better acquainted with our taste, they feasted us with a broth made of fish, boiled shrimps, hard-boiled eggs, and very good raw oysters. At one of the interviews (March 13), the presents from our government were delivered. They consisted of cloths, agricultural implements, fire-arms, etc., and a beautiful locomotive, tender, and passenger-car, one-fourth the ordinary size, which we put in motion on a circular track, at the rate of twenty miles an hour. A mile of magnetic telegraph was also erected on shore, and put in operation. The Japanese were more interested in it than anything else, but never manifested any wonder. So capable are they of concealing and controlling their feelings, that they would examine the guns, machinery, etc., of the steamers, without expressing the slightest astonishment. They are a much finer-looking race than the Chinese—intelligent, polite, and hospitable, but proud, licentious, unforgiving, and revengeful.”
The death of a marine afforded an opportunity, at the first meeting with the commissioners, of demanding a burying-place. It was proposed to send the body to Nagasaki; but, as the commodore would not listen to that, a spot was assigned near one of their temples, and in view of the ships, where the body was buried, with all the forms of the English church service, after which the Japanese surrounded the grave with a neat enclosure of bamboo.
A formal letter of reply to the propositions contained in the letters delivered at the former visit, repeated the story of a change of succession, and the necessity of delays. The justice, however, of the demands in relation to shipwrecked seamen, wood, water, provisions, and coal, was conceded; but five years were asked before opening a new harbor, the Americans, in the mean time, to resort to Nagasaki.
