I was quickly back in my fairy-tale quarters in the little temple of Monriuin, overlooking the Bay of Yedo—soon to become Tōkiō, in order that the last vestige of the power of the Tokugawa family might be swept away. My little temple home was not much bigger than a doll’s house, but it was very pretty and snug and to a tired and overworked man it was a delight to slip on a bath-gown in the early morning and drink in the refreshing breezes which came blowing into the garden from over the sea. I had plenty to amuse me, and leisure to go on plodding at my “Tales of Old Japan,” which were growing in bulk. The stories themselves were not such hard work; but the notes and appendices involved much labour in looking up authorities and gathering together odds and ends of information. Parkes used to say that, if ever the book was published, they would be the best part of it. The civil war was now practically at an end. The Shōgun, shorn of his rank, was easing his scholarly mind in the composition of Chinese poetry in his romantic castle of Shidzuoka, the favourite castle of his great ancestor Iyéyasu, where, leading the life of a country gentleman, he for some forty years devoted himself to agricultural pursuits, especially to improving the cultivation of tea. In this way he found good employment for the vast number of retainers whom he was unable to support as in old days, but whom he would not turn adrift. He was a kind and generous master. There was still fighting in the north, and the Prince of Aidzu did not capitulate until towards the end of the year. Enomoto, who was in command of the ships of the Tokugawa, had taken his fleet to Hakodaté in the island of Yesso, where he was joined by Captain Brunet and another officer of the _mission militaire_, and by one or two French midshipmen from the _Minerve_. Enomoto’s attempt to proclaim a republic in Yesso was an utter failure; by the month of June, 1869, he was hopelessly defeated; the French officers, who had surrendered to their own naval commander, were shipped off on board the _Coetlogon_ to Yokohama, where M. Outrey, who had succeeded M. Léon Roches as French Minister, would not even allow them to land, but ingloriously packed them off in the _Dupleix_ to Saigon. The departure of these troublesome French gentlemen with their tails between their legs, was a source of infinite joy to Sir Harry Parkes, and of great relief to M. Outrey, who had been much annoyed by their conduct. Enomoto himself, the arch-rebel, was forgiven, and was afterwards Japanese Minister in Peking.