They departed from Miako in palanquins on the 2d of March, and travelling through a picturesque country, dotted with groves, glittering with temples and lakes, and admirably cultivated, arrived in three days at the town of Mijah, where they saw a very curious edifice, called the “Temple of the Three Scimitars,” where three miraculous swords, once wielded by demigods, are honoured with a kind of divine worship. On the 13th of March they arrived, by a fine road running along the edge of the sea, at Jeddo, and entered the principal street, where they encountered as they rode along numerous trains of princes and great lords, with ladies magnificently dressed, and carried in chairs or palanquins. This city, the largest and most populous in the empire, stands at the bottom of a large bay or gulf, and is at least twenty miles in circumference. Though fortified by numerous ditches and ramparts, Jeddo is not surrounded by a wall. A noble river, which divides itself into numerous branches, intersects it in various directions, and thus creates a number of islands which are connected by magnificent bridges. From the principal of these bridges, which is called Niponbas, or the Bridge of Japan, the great roads leading to all parts of the empire radiate as lines from a common centre, and thence likewise all roads and distances are measured. Though houses are not kept ready built, as at Moscow, to be removed at a moment’s notice in case of destruction by fire or any other accident, they are generally so slight, consisting entirely of wood and wainscotting, that they may be erected with extraordinary despatch. Owing to the combustible materials of those edifices, the very roofs consisting of mere wood-shavings, while all the floors are covered with mats, Jeddo is exceedingly liable to fires, which sometimes lay waste whole streets and quarters of the city. To check these conflagrations in their beginnings every house has a small wooden cistern of water on the house-top, with two mops for sprinkling the water; but these precautions being frequently found inefficient, large companies of firemen constantly patrol the streets, day and night, in order, by pulling down some of the neighbouring houses, to put a stop to the fires. The imperial palace, five Japanese miles in circumference, consists of several castles united together by a wall, and surrounded by a deep ditch. The various structures which compose this vast residence are built with freestone, and from amid the wilderness of roofs a square white tower rises aloft, and, consisting of many stories, each of which has its leaded roof, ornamented at each corner with gilded dragons, communicates to the whole scene an air of singular grandeur and beauty. Behind the palace, which itself stands upon an acclivity, the ground continues to rise, and this whole slope is adorned, according to the taste of the country, with curious and magnificent gardens, which are terminated by a pleasant wood