"You know how a tea-chest looks, so I need not describe it any more than to say that the chest is lined with tin, and that the tin is carefully soldered, so that not a single particle of dampness can get in while the tea is on the ocean. If it should, the tea would be spoiled, as the least dampness will injure it, and a great deal will make it quite useless. They always try to hurry the new crop of tea as rapidly as they can, since it is the best, and has more and better flavor than the crop of the previous year. When a ship sails with new tea, she races for home as hard as she can go, and the quickest voyages ever made from this part of the world to Europe and America have been made by ships with cargoes of new tea." When the party sailed from Yokohama, they found themselves on board a steamer which was, and was not, Japanese. She was built in New York, and formerly ran between that city and Aspinwall. Subsequently she was sent to Japan in the service of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and was sold, along with several other American steamers, to a Japanese company. This company was formed with Japanese capital, and its management was Japanese; but the ships were foreign, and the officers and engineers were mostly English or American. The Doctor told the boys that the Mitsu Bishi Company, as this Japanese organization was called, was increasing every year the number of its ships. It received assistance from the government in the form of a mail contract, and was evidently doing very well. The steamers ran once a week each way between Yokohama and Shanghai, touching at Kobe and Nagasaki, and there were lines to other ports of Japan. The Japanese were studying naval architecture and making good progress, and they hoped before many years to construct their own ships. Every year they reduced the number of foreigners in their service, and some of their establishments were entirely under native management. [Illustration: HIOGO (KOBE).]