The column of escort then reformed, and returned to the beach where we landed, in the same order in which we had come, passing down the front of the line of Japanese soldiers, many a scowling fellow meanwhile looking daggers at us; and their officers, affecting an indifference to the scene, which they could not have felt, perhaps thinking how agreeable a thing it would be, to hold one of those Americans on the end of one of their blades, as a fork, and hack him with the other as a knife; if they only dared to try. So closed the day that is to mark the opening of Japan to the world. America has said, “Open, sesame!” I said to Major Zeilen, of the marine corps (a fine old soldier), the day before we landed, “Well, major, they have our cages ashore?” “No, sir; no caging to-morrow,” said he, “it will be fight to the death!” Our men marched past the Japanese troops with the greatest indifference, making such remarks as, “Jack, give us a chaw of tobacco.” “Robinson,” said the officer of the deck to a six-foot quartermaster who was to carry an American ensign, “don’t you let them take that away from you, to-day.” Robinson said, “Well, sir, they may do it, but the man who takes it _won’t be able to carry it after_ he gets it.” In the afternoon, of the day of the landing, the steamers got underway, passed the point or “Rubicon Fort,” as it was named, and went into anchorage in the inner bay, which had been sounded out by boats under cover of the Mississippi, three days before. In doing so we got the best view of the line of fortifications, which extend from a point on the western side, marking the narrowest part of the outer, or entrance to the inner bay, down to the city of Uraga. The first fort, built very well, was a kind of curtain-wall with four embrasures, fronted by an artificial plateau sloping to the water’s edge, and protected in the rear by a deep triangular excavation in high sandstone, whose sides sloped to the area below, and must have been made after much labor. This contained a barrack building, and the entrance was by a narrow “grotto pausilipo,” cut through a hill behind. Next, in a small indentation in the shore, was a circular fort, not very extensive, containing houses for troops, and having guns in barbette. The third was on a small circular promontory of some size. The space fortified was mostly occupied by a steep wedge-shaped hill, and was pierced for four guns. The fourth, divided from the third by a small town, as the third was divided from the second, was a rampart of earth and masonry, with a parapet, built across a narrow gorge, surmounted by a high hill with a small crown-battery, from which the shells were fired on our arrival. The principal and best fort, of some dimension, not yet completed, was situated on the north side of the entrance to the harbor of Uraga. This battery was placed some eighty feet above the water, the Japanese having no doubt learned, from their Dutch _confreres_,