“We no sooner entered the roads than we were surrounded by a number of boats, of all descriptions and sizes, filled with the curious of both sexes. A European ship must indeed have been to them an object of uncommon interest; for, as far as I could ascertain, they had seen none since they were visited twenty-two years before by Laxman.[99] Many of the inhabitants, therefore, had never beheld a European vessel of any kind, and still less a ship of war; they accordingly thronged about us in vast numbers, and their curiosity frequently gave rise to disputes among themselves. The Dōshin (soldiers), who were stationed in the watch-boats, continually called to them to keep at a further distance; but so great was the confusion that, though the people generally showed great respect to the soldiers, their orders were on this occasion disregarded. The military, therefore, were under the necessity of using the iron batons which they wear fastened to their girdles by long silken strings. They spared neither rank nor sex; old persons alone experienced their indulgence, and we had various opportunities of observing that the Japanese, in all situations, pay particular respect to old age. In this case blows were freely dealt out to the young, of every description, who ventured to disobey the commands of the soldiers, and we were at length delivered from a multitude of visitors, who would have subjected us to no small degree of inconvenience.” Kahei came on board the next morning, and the letter from the governor of Okhotsk was given to him to be transmitted to the governor of Matsumae; but Captain Rikord refused to deliver the other letter, except in person. After much negotiation the ceremonial for an interview was arranged. The Japanese even conceded that the ten men who landed with Rikord as his guard of honor should be allowed to take their muskets with them; he, on his part, agreeing to land in the Japanese governor’s barge, and, before entering the audience chamber, to substitute, instead of his boots, shoes, which Kahei undertook to pass off as leather stockings. Rikord had for his interpreter a Japanese whom he had brought from Okhotsk, sent thither from Irkutsk, and who bore the Russian name of Kesseleff. The Japanese had Teisuke, who had learnt Russian of Golownin. The governor of Matsumae, Hattori-Bingo-no-kami, was represented on this occasion by the governor of Hakodate, and by an academician sent for the express purpose of making observations on the Russian ship of war, and collecting particulars respecting European science,—no other, indeed, than Doeff’s friend, “Globius.”