We returned to Yedo and the next few weeks were spent in the usual humdrum way, transacting routine business, cursing the heat and the mosquitoes, until towards the end of July, when Sir Harry Parkes and I started for the Island of Yesso; I, with Sir Harry Keppel in his yacht, the _Salamis_; my chief in the _Basilisk_. It was a very interesting trip, for apart from all else it gave me my first and only sight of the Ainu aborigines. The business part of the trip was concerned with an inquiry into the commerce of the western coast of Japan, and especially with an endeavour to find some suitable port for opening to foreign trade. And so it happened that on the 7th of August the _Salamis_, the _Basilisk_ under Captain Hewitt, with Satow on board, and the surveying ship _Serpent_ (Commander Bullock), were assembled in the harbour of Nanao, a town of Noto on the west coast belonging to the principality of Kaga, the richest noble in Japan. The Bay of Nanao is partially closed by a small island and Sir Harry Parkes felt that it would be valuable as a port for foreign trade—far more useful than Niigata, with its open roadstead and treacherous bar. As he was extremely anxious to enter into communication with the clan of Kaga, it was arranged that two of the Prince’s councillors should come from Kanazawa, the capital of the province, to hold a conference. There was some delay about this and it was not until Friday, the 9th of August, that the meeting took place. Sir Harry used every endeavour to impress upon the Kaga representatives the desirability of entering into friendly relations with foreigners, as the Princes of Satsuma, Tosa and Uwajima had done; but his arguments were of no great avail. Kaga had evidently not yet quite made up his mind as to which side he would take in the impending struggle; the plea put forward by his agents as a reason for not opening Nanao as a port to foreign trade was that if they did so the Government of the Tycoon would inevitably seize upon it, and take possession of what had been the birthright of Kaga since remote times. The emissaries raised every possible objection, and the more they opposed the more determined Sir Harry was to get something out of them. At last, after giving them the roughest edge of his tongue, which in his case meant a good deal, he said that since they were so unfriendly he should send two of his officials, Mr. Satow and myself, to Kanazawa and thence we should travel overland to join him at Ōsaka. This suggestion, as may be supposed, was not very favourably received, and the interview broke up with a little less than a show of politeness.