The Loo-Choo group of islands lies in the North Pacific, and forms a semi-circle, extending from Japan to the island of Formosa. The inhabitants number under three millions, perhaps. The two principal islands of the group are known as Great and Little Loo-Choo. It is to the latter that the following remarks must be understood to refer. This island is almost intersected by a narrow arm of the sea reaching far, far away inland amongst the richly clad hills and mountains. This, according to the charts, is Hancock bay, up which we are steaming. Nature is looking her best as we pass, and wafting off to us her sweetest smells; a green summer mantle clothes every eminence and gentle slope; and the nestling villages have such a quiet, peaceful look, that it seems almost a pity to disturb them--as we certainly shall--from their dream-like repose. Each village possesses its water mill or mills, so that the natives are not entirely ignorant of mechanics. Hundreds of canoes, of the rudest construction, crammed with men, women, and children, put off to us when we came to anchor. Though it is said they are of mixed Chinese and Aino origin; the people are of cast countenance, and style of dress peculiar to the Japanese; they have, however, a way of doing their hair, all their own. The men gather all theirs into a tuft at the poll, where it is secured with a silk marling, the extreme ends forming a sort of fringe, like a plume of feathers. The very fine, long, and glossy hair of the women is rolled jauntily on the top of the head in a loose spiral coil, resembling the volutes of a shell. Through this rather graceful head-dress they stick a long silver pin, in some cases a foot long. They appear a very timid race. This is particularly noticeable on board. Whether it was because they saw none of their own sex amongst us, I know not; but I doubt if the women saw much of what they had come to see, as most of their time was passed in eclipse under their husbands' lee, and whose hands they never once loosed from the time of entering the ship until they left us again. We treated them to sailors' fare, allowing them the free run of our bread barges, and endeavoured all we could--but without success--to set them at their ease. They were all highly perfumed with the penetrating odour of garlic. I noticed that the married ladies, in common with Aino women, tattoo the backs of their hands, though not their mouths. One king generally suffices a people,--and even one is often found too much--but this race tolerates _three_, or did until very recently; one of their own; the emperor of China, whom they call father; and the mikado of Japan, whom they style mother. To both their "parents" they pay an immense tribute, which annually absorbs two-thirds of their produce. It will be inferred from this that the condition of the lower classes is very unfavorable.