These darlings cluster round my knees, and one, more demure than the rest, thoughtfully asks: 'Why is Uncle Budge's hair not snowy white, like yours, dear Deb? For Uncle Budge says he is _very_ old, and that God will soon call him away from us.' ADVENTURES IN JAPAN. For above two hundred years, the unknown millions of Japan have been shut up in their own islands, forbidden, under the severest penalties, either to admit foreigners on their shores, or themselves to visit any other realm in the world. The Dutch are permitted to send two ships in a year to the port of Nangasaki, where they are received with the greatest precaution, and subjected to a surveillance even more degrading than was that formerly endured by the Europeans at Canton. Any other foreigner whom misfortune or inadvertence may land on their shores, is doomed to perpetual imprisonment; and even if one of their own people should pass twelve months out of the country, he is, on his return, kept for life at the capital, and suffered no more to join his family, or mingle at large in the business or social intercourse of life. In pursuance of this policy, it is believed that the Japanese government now holds in captivity several subjects of the United States, and it is expected that an armament will be sent to rescue them by force. Since this announcement has been made, and the general expectation has been raised that Japan will soon have to submit, like China, to surrender its isolation, and enter into relations with the rest of the civilised world, there has seasonably appeared an English reprint of a work hitherto little known among us--a personal narrative of a Japanese captivity of two years and a half, by an officer in the Russian navy.[1] If we may judge from its details, our transatlantic friends had need to keep all their eyes wide open in dealing with this people.