The island of Niphon, on which Yokohama is situated, is about one hundred and seventy miles long by seventy broad, while Yesso is somewhat longer and narrower. Japan really became known to Europe through Fernando Mendez Pinto, a Portuguese who was shipwrecked there in 1549. Seven years later the famous Jesuit, Francis Xavier, introduced the Catholic faith, which for a long time made great progress. But a fatal mistake was made in 1580, when an embassy was sent to the Pope with presents and vows of allegiance. The reigning Tycoon(94) had his eyes opened by this act, and saw that to profess obedience to any spiritual lord was to weaken his own power immeasurably. The priests of the old religions, too, complained bitterly of the loss of their flocks, and the Tycoon determined to crush out the Christian faith. Thousands upon thousands of converts were put to death, and the very last of them are said to have been hurled from the rock of Papenberg, at Nagasaki, into the sea. In 1600, William Adams, an English sailor on a Dutch ship, arrived in the harbour of Bungo, and speedily became a favourite with the Tycoon, who, through him, gave the English permission to establish a trading “factory” on the island of Firando. This was later on abandoned, but the Dutch East India Company continued the trade on the same island, under very severe restrictions. The fire-arms and powder on their ships were taken from them immediately on arrival, and only returned when the ships were ready for sea again. [Illustration: YOKOHAMA.] Yokohama, the principal port, stands on a flat piece of ground, at the wide end of a valley, which runs narrowing up for several miles in the country. The site was reclaimed from a mere swamp by the energy of the Government; and there is now a fine sea-wall facing the sea, with two piers running out into it, on each of which there is a custom-house. The average Japanese in the streets is clothed in a long thin cotton robe, open in front and gathered at the waist by a cloth girdle. This constitutes the whole of his dress, save a scanty cloth tied tightly round the loins, cotton socks and wooden clogs. The elder women look hideous, but some of their ugliness is self-inflicted, as it is the fashion, when a woman becomes a wife, to draw out the hair of her eyebrows and varnish her teeth black! Their teeth are white, and they still have their eyebrows, but are too much prone to the use of chalk and vermilion on their cheeks. Every one is familiar with the Japanese stature—under the general average—for there are now a large number of the natives resident in London.