The next day (Friday, the 15th) the “Mississippi” proceeded on an excursion ten miles further up, and reached, as was supposed, within eight or ten miles of the capital. On the western shore were seen two large towns. On the extremity of a cape in front, some four miles distant, stood a tall white tower, like a lighthouse. Three or four miles beyond was a crowd of shipping, supposed to be the anchorage of Shinagawa, the southern suburb of Yedo. At the point where the steamer put about, she had twenty fathoms of water. On Saturday, the 16th, the vessels moved to a new anchorage, five or six miles down the bay, and much nearer the shore, and here the surveying operations were renewed. The same day an interchange of presents took place with Yezaimon, who, however, was induced to accept those offered to him only by the positive refusal of his own, except on that condition. Thus pressed, he finally took them, except some arms—articles, he said, which the Japanese neither gave nor received. In the afternoon he came again, in excellent humor, his conduct probably having been approved on shore, bringing a quantity of fowls, in light wicker coops, and three or four thousand eggs, in boxes, for which a box of garden-seeds was accepted in return. The next day, 17th, and the tenth since their arrival, the vessels weighed and stood for Lew Chew, the bay being covered with boats, to witness their departure.[119] 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.