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.