“The country is exceedingly picturesque, and resembles very much the lower ranges of the Alps. Along the little river of Shimoda are many villages, and numbers of rice-mills stamp and grind along its banks. About six miles above the bay this river separates into several branches. Following either of them, you pass through numerous gorges and glens, and finally reach the barren tops of mountains, some three thousand feet high. Their summits and the narrow tablelands are covered with bushy grass, among which a certain berry, upon which pheasants and partridges feed, grows very plentifully. “In one of the larger temples a place has been arranged for the daguerreotype, and Mr. Brown is actively at work. He has obtained many very fine daguerreotypes of the Japanese, and will have a fine collection to show when he reaches home. Mr. Heine continues his sketching, drawing, painting, gunning, skinning, pressing, and preserving plants. Lieutenants Murray, Bent, Whiting, Nicholson, etc., etc., have been busily engaged in the survey, and deserve no small credit for their exertions and the important results they have obtained.” Of this visit to Shimoda, the officer of the “Vandalia” already quoted thus speaks: “Here we were permitted to go on shore and ramble about in a circuit for ten miles, much to our delight as we all felt the want of exercise. Excepting at Yokohama, where we were not allowed to go far from the audience house, we had not been on shore since we left Lew Chew. They watched us very closely at first, sending guards of soldiers to accompany us, shutting the shops, and concealing the women; but in a few days these restrictions were removed, and we were left undisturbed to wander where we pleased. The town, containing eight thousand people, is pleasantly situated in a well-cultivated valley, surrounded by high hills that conceal from view the entrance to its safe and picturesque harbor. The streets are wide and straight, and the better class of houses two stories high, plastered, and roofed with elegant tiles.[124] The interior is kept very clean and neat, and the rooms, covered with mats, are separated from each other by sliding screens, that are closed or removed at pleasure. There are no chimneys in Japan. A charcoal fire is built in a little sandpit in the middle of the floor, around which the family are usually found seated on their knees (qu. heels?), drinking tea and smoking their pipes. Not a chair or any other piece of furniture can be seen. Tubs of water are kept in front of each house, as well as on the roofs, in readiness against any fire, for conflagrations are so frequent and extensive that whole towns are sometimes burnt down.