The promontory of Idzu loomed into view on the hazy morning of the 7th, and Rock island—now crowned by a lighthouse, and connected by telephone with the shore and with Yokohama, but then bare—was passed. Cape Sagami was reached at noon, and at 3 o’clock the ships had begun to get within range of the forts that crowned or ridged the headlands of the promontory. The weather cleared and the cone of Fuji, in a blaze of glory, rose peerless to the skies. Cautiously the ships rounded the cape, when from one of the forts there rose in the air a rocket-signal. “Japanese day fire-works” are now common enough at Coney Island. Made of gunpowder and wolf dung, they are fired out of upright bamboo-bound howitzers made of stout tree trunks. The “shell” exploded high in air forming a cloud of floating dust. The black picture stained the sky for several minutes. It was a signal to the army lying in the ravines, and a notice, repeated at intervals, to the court at Yedo. The expected Perry had “sailed into the Sea of Sagami and into Japanese history.” In the afternoon, the first steamers ever seen in Japanese waters, dropped anchor off Uraga. As previously ordered, by diagram of the Commodore, the ships formed a line broadside to the shore. The ports were opened, and the loaded guns run out. Every precaution was taken to guard against surprise from boats, by fire-junks, or whatever native ingenuity should devise against the big “black ships.” The first signal made from the flag-ship was this, “Have no communication with the shore, have none from the shore.” The night passed quietly and without alarms. Only the boom of the temple bells, the glare of the camp-fires, and the dancing of lantern lights told of life on the near land. This is the view from the American decks. Let us now picture the scene from the shore, as native eyes saw it. ----- [25] The Japan Expedition, New York, 1855 CHAPTER XXX. THE FIRE-VESSELS OF THE WESTERN BARBARIANS.