During the night they passed Cape King and entered Yeddo bay. The great light-house that watches the entrance shot its rays far out over the waters and beamed a kindly welcome to the strangers. Slowly they steamed onward, keeping a careful lookout for the numerous boats and junks that abound there, and watching the hundreds of lights that gleamed along the shore and dotted the sloping hill-sides. Sixty miles from Cape King, they were in front of Yokohama; the engines stopped, the anchor fell, the chain rattled through the hawse-hole, and the ship was at rest, after her long journey from San Francisco. Our young adventurers were in Japan. With the first streak of dawn the boys were on deck, where they were joined by Doctor Bronson. The sun was just rising when the steamer dropped her anchor, and, consequently, their first day in the new country was begun very early. There was an abundance of sights for the young eyes, and no lack of subjects for conversation. Hardly was the anchor down before the steamer was surrounded by a swarm of little boats, and Frank thought they were the funniest boats he had ever seen. [Illustration: JAPANESE JUNK AND BOATS.] "They are called 'sampans,'" Doctor Bronson explained, "and are made entirety of wood. Of late years the Japanese sometimes use copper or iron nails for fastenings; but formerly you found them without a particle of metal about them." "They don't look as if they could stand rough weather," said Fred. "See; they are low and square at the stern, and high and sharp at the bow; and they sit very low in the water." "They are not in accordance with our notions," replied the Doctor; "but they are excellent sea-boats, and I have known them to ride safely where an American boat would have been swamped. You observe how easily they go through the water. They can be handled very readily, and, certainly, the Japanese have no occasion to be ashamed of their craft." [Illustration: A JAPANESE IMPERIAL BARGE.] Frank had his eye on a sampan that was darting about like an active fish, first in one direction and then in another. It was propelled by a single oar in the hands of a brown-skinned boatman, who was not encumbered with a large amount of superfluous clothing. The oar was in two pieces--a blade and a handle--lashed together in such a way that they did not form a straight line. At first Frank thought there was something wrong about it; but he soon observed that the oars in all the boats were of the same pattern, and made in the same way. They were worked like sculls rather than like oars. The man kept the oar constantly beneath the water; and, as he moved it forwards and back, he turned it partly around. A rope near his hand regulated the distance the oar could be turned, and also kept it from rising out of the water or going too far below the surface.