Commodore Perry was fully satisfied on all points suggested by him, which were in accordance with Mr. Webster’s letter of instructions to Commodore Aulick, accompanying the first letter to the emperor. A draft treaty, in English, Dutch, Chinese, and Japanese, was put into the hands of the Japanese commissioners, who said that it would receive due consideration; but the old emperor had died since Commodore Perry was there last year, and his successor was a young man, who would require to consult his council before coming to a determination, and the commodore was reminded that the Japanese did not act with the same rapidity as Americans did. After these preliminaries had been gotten through, the commodore made known to the commissioners, that a man had been dead on the Mississippi for two days, and he desired to know, whether he could not bury him on an island lower down the bay, which we had already surveyed, and called after the great statesman, “Webster Island.” They objected strongly to this, and said, if we would deliver the body to them at Uraga, some twenty-six miles below, that they would have it safely conveyed to Nangasaki on the island of Kiusu, a distance of five hundred miles, and there inter it in the burying-ground, which they have allowed the Dutch. The commodore would not consent to this, when they agreed to permit the burial on shore just abreast of our anchorage. They said, they would have the spot fenced in; most probably because hereafter it would be tabooed ground with them. When the commissioners and commodore retired, the officers of the escort, who remained, were treated with tea and confections. After these thin-cooked meats, some bearing great favor to fried snakes, cut in slips so thin that the hinges of one’s jaw would become tired, long before his appetite became satisfied, were placed before them on lacquered plates. This repast produced much disappointment with the officers; they had paid two official visits to the prince-regent of Loo-Choo island—a dependency of Japan, and on one occasion were entertained by him with as many as thirteen different soups at one feast, and arguing from “man to master,” they anticipated twenty-six different kinds of soups, when they got their knees under Japanese pine. To those who were sharp-set, the entertainment of Timon of Athens could not have been much less satisfactory. Equi-distant on the tables, were lacquered trays supported with feet, on which were placed of the same material, heavy ornamental silver “tea-pots,” containing saki, while the tea was served in thin-lacquered cups, resting—to keep the heat from the hand—on circular pieces of bamboo, resembling the dice-box of a backgammon-board. The Japan lacquer—and this being a part of the “service” of royalty, must have been a fair specimen of it, did not strike me as being incomparably superior to that of the Chinese, as I had supposed.