The first port the vessel steamed for was Mitsugahamo, whose land-locked harbor was entered toward evening, the blazing sheen of the setting sun tingeing a deep sapphirine sky, reflecting from the mirror-like bay to the craggy cliffs whose contour shone in amethystine beauty. As the sun sank behind the cliffs, the iron clang of clattering chains was heard lowering the anchors. This American ship had been the first foreign vessel to enter the channel of this sacred port of the pristine Shoguns. The people of this island, in their more than semi-nudeness, courtesied to the ground on meeting the Americans, offering their broad sun-shades during the day, and providing sandals for the visitor who on entering their pretty bamboo homes is required to remove his shoes. Morality in Japan has been decried as being lax; the assertion in my estimation is a libel, when attended with more weight than should be given other countries. From my personal observation of countries, the customs and manners of their people, the records of divorce courts, mutual separations, desertions, and the “red-light” signals to the underworld of the large cities, I would place the Japanese fourth, and in so doing begin the line of comparison within the confines of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. In the villages of Mitsugahamo cleanliness was the dominating virtue; carefully swept streets were offset by bamboo fences enclosing productive gardens and rockeries with plants of flaunting blossoms. Hardwood carving and lacquer work employed a large number of the men, while the women, with their little tycoons strapped like a papoose, were engaged in weaving silk on a loom or in fancy painting and embroidering. The people of this island seemed to be the typical Japanese aborigines, there being no indication of a mixture of blood, such as is seen in such seaport cities as Nagasaki and Yokohama.