The next year the first line of railway was completed and the moment was seized by his Majesty’s advisers for a grand ceremony at the port which thirteen years before had been thrown open to foreign trade. A suitable stage had been erected at the Yokohama end of the eighteen miles long railway, over which an experimental train service had been conducted for some weeks previously, and at the appointed hour the Emperor, clad in white silk robes, with a crimson sash, and scarlet trousers, and wearing in place of a crown the antique black coif terminating in an upright lath-like structure which rose some ten inches above his head, came forward in full view of the multitude, which included hundreds of foreign residents and visitors. To the great mass of his subjects, with whom the existence of the sovereign had always been a matter of pious belief rather than of assured reality, this manifestation in the flesh of their revered ruler was beyond measure impressive and gratifying. It unquestionably smoothed the path of the newly formed Central Government, for the advent of his majesty on the scene was proof positive that all which was then being done in the way of innovation upon established usage had the imperial sanction and authority. In Japan this meant a great deal more, owing to the respect for law and order which is admittedly inherent to the Japanese character and disposition, than it by any possibility could have done in lands where less reverence is shown to sovereign attributes. The day was one to be remembered by old and young alike, for it marked beyond all doubt the emancipation of Japan from the thraldom of a feudal system which had held her in check for centuries. The Emperor had set the seal of his approval on projects of reform. In the same year the Gregorian calendar was adopted throughout Japan, and from this period may be said to have been obliterated those discrepancies in dates which had been unavoidable owing to the tendency to resort to the Chinese plan of reckoning time. Down to the year named the day of the month corresponded to the age of the moon, and an intercalary month had to be provided in the calendar every third year. The new year fell usually between mid-January and mid-February, and as dates were given in conformity with the old style of reckoning in some cases and in others the new, it may be that down to 1872 there will here and there be found a difference of a month or so in the recorded dates of events.