this, believing the document to have some reference to a matter which had been mooted by the younger officers of the squadron, of which I was one. Just after this, a couple of the resident officers came up from the direction of Simoda, whose approach was the signal for the scattering of the villagers, who are not permitted to stand and gaze on a stranger. Between them and my incognito epistolary friends, salutations were formally interchanged, when both parties moved off in opposite directions. The examining look which accompanied these otherwise very ordinary politenesses, on the part of those from Simoda, caused the idea to pass through my mind that the others were from another province. By this time, my friends from the flag-ship having joined me, we struck into the country to the southward, to take what in the “pigeon” dialect of the Chinaman, is called a “look see” at the botany of Japan, which those who have more of this pleasant information than myself, represent as being of much interest. Our path led through a very broken yet well-wooded and cultivated country. We entered a small building used as a schoolhouse, and also as a place of worship. In a room was a colossal figure of some female deity in a sitting posture, which, not being a Buddhist representation, must have been intended for a likeness of _Ten-sio-dai-zin_, the especial deity of Japan. Officers who had seen it before us, looked upon it as a fine specimen of their casting in bronze, but we found it on examination to be of wood, painted in imitation. We had an opportunity of seeing the little dwarfed trees which they are so skilful in preserving; and in front of many of the houses, different trees trained in the form of animals, with sea-shells to represent the eyes. The cultivation, which is very close and clean, was mostly in terraces and between hills. Occasionally we reached a level field, which was being ploughed. This is done with a small plough, with a single hand and beam, the share being like an iron scoop, not of much diameter. It is drawn by an ox in traces, and with wooden saddle, while a small boy leads him with a stick attached to a ring in the nose, and a man holds the handle of the diminutive earth-scratcher. Little pathway streams are turned to use by being made to fall into wooden troughs on the end of balanced wooden levers, which filling and precipitating at intervals, with a weight on the opposite end of the beam, are made to pound rice in mortars. We encountered any number of wayside shrines, mostly made by placing small stone images in little coves: occasionally a short flight of steps led up to one. At these the wayfarer prays.