The bonzes of the orders of the blind, who may be seen walking the streets in their gauze gowns and swinging sashes, appear to be in high favor with the populace. The history of these orders is eminently Japaneish. The first is called _Bussatz Sato_. Centuries are nothing in Japanese chronology, and this was instituted many centuries ago, by one Senmimar, the junior son of a _mikado_, who was a perfect Japanese Adonis, in commemoration of his having wept himself blind for the loss of his princess, whose good looks were equal to his own. The first order had existed for ages, when the second appeared. Yoritomo, the first _ziogoon_, of whom I have previously spoken, while leading the _mikado’s_ troops, defeated the rebel prince Feki, who fell, and his general Kakekigo captured. He was a general of great renown, and Yoritomo strove to gain his prisoner’s friendship, by loading him with kindness, and finally offering him his liberty. The captive Kakekigo replied: “I can love none but my slain master. I owe you gratitude; but you caused Prince Feki’s death, and never can I look upon you without wishing to kill you. My best way to avoid such ingratitude, and to reconcile my conflicting duties, is never to see you more; and thus do I insure it.” He tore out his eyes, and presented them to Yoritomo on a salver. The prince, struck with admiration, released him; and in retirement Kakekigo founded the second order of the blind, called after his former master, _Feki-sado_. The ascent to the _Hakodadi Yama_, a hill rising some fifteen hundred feet back of the town, I made through fields of black, rich soil, not yet dry from melting snow, which, a Japanese made sign, had been breast deep. Wild grape-vines all around were budding out. The view from the top of this hill was very commanding: across the straits in Niphon, and on the mountain tops around, you saw “winter lingering,” &c. Below, long trains of pack-horses loaded with charcoal were continually traversing the plain; the fishing villages were busy with their seines; the town showed like a narrow strip of houses, and our ships and the three hundred junks in the harbor, went but a little way to fill up the great water space around. Ours were no doubt the first Anglo-Saxon feet, that ever trod this height. We found a look-out house up there, where the movement of every ship passing through the straits of Sangar into the sea of Japan is noted. It was counting the whalers passing here, and the annual increase of the number bearing the American flag, that tended to give the Japanese an exalted opinion of the greatness of our country, though one of the look-outs did not show it in a very flattering way. He desired the direction of America: I gave it to him. He then very deliberately drew a large O with the point of his sword-case on the ground, and said “Nipong;” and then drawing a small o he said “America;” this was very well when the “Lion played painter,”