On the afternoon of the seventh day of July, 1853, or the third day of the sixth month of Kayéi, in the reign of the Emperor Koméi, the farmers working in the muddy rice-fields near the village of Uraga saw a strange sight. It was a clear summer afternoon, and the beautiful mountain Fuji, its cone wreathed in white clouds, could be seen from sea and shore. What startled the men in the fields, the people in the village, and the boatmen in the harbor, was a fleet of vessels coming to anchor in the bay of Yedo. These monsters, with their sails furled, although they were heading against the wind, were shooting tongues of smoke from their great black throats. "See the fire-vessels!" cried the Japanese to each other. When the peasants asked the priests where the monsters came from the wise men answered that they were the fire-vessels of the barbarians who lived in the West. The monsters were four ships of the United States navy, the _Mississippi_, _Susquehanna_, _Plymouth_, and _Saratoga_, all under command of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry. The fleet dropped anchor in the wide bay, forming a line broadside to the shore. The gun-ports were opened, and sentries set to guard against attack by pirates, or by fire-junks. As the anchors splashed in the water rockets shot up from one of the forts on shore signaling to the court at Yedo that the barbarians had reached Japan. The town of Uraga was usually not a very busy place, and the government officers spent their time drinking tea, smoking, and lounging in the sun, and occasionally collecting custom duties from junks bound to other harbors. But there was a great bustle on the day the strange ships arrived. The chief magistrate, or buni[=o], his interpreter, and suite of attendants, put on their formal dress of hempen cloth, and fastened their lacquered ornamented hats to their heads; with two swords in each belt, the party marched to the shore and boarded their state barge. Twelve oarsmen rowed it to the nearest foreign ship, but when they tried to fasten ropes to the vessel so that they might go on board, the barbarians threw off the ropes, and gestured to them to keep away. The Japanese officer was surprised to find that, although he was gorgeously robed, and his companions carried spears and the Tokugawa trefoil flag, the barbarians were not at all impressed. They told him, through an interpreter, that their commander wished to confer with the governor himself. The officer answered that the governor was not allowed to board foreign ships. After some further discussion the surprised Japanese was permitted to climb the gangway ladder and meet the barbarians on the deck of their vessel.