Read Ebook: The Japan expedition. Japan and around the world An account of three visits to the Japanese empire with sketches of Madeira St. Helena cape of Good Hope Mauritius Ceylon Singapore China and Loo-Choo by Spalding J W J Willett

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At Sea again--The Canaries--The "Trades," Incipient and Real--Man-of-War Existence--Drills--Running down the "Trades"--Small-Pox--Christmas that was not Christmas--First General Order issued--Under Steam again--Man Overboard--Crossing the Line--Arrival at the Ocean-Prison--St. Helena--Hot January--Reverberation--Slavers--James' Town--A View from a Summit--Tomb of the Great Emperor--Jonathan--To Longwood--The New House--Plantation House--A Bust of Napoleon--Departure from St. Helena 27

Cape of Good Hope--Shadows--Cape Town--Sights in the Street--Drive to Constantia--The Wine--Kaffir War--Botanical--Leave Cape Town--The Birkenhead--Cattle at Sea--Anti-Scorbutic--St. Valentine's Day, and the "Styx"--The Indian Ocean 45

Isle of France--John Bull under a Torrid Sun--Port Louis and its Bazar--Different Races and Religions--In the Country at Mauritius--John Chinaman--Pamplemouses--Paul and Virginia--A Botanical Garden--Reality as well as Romance--Hurricanes--History of the Island--The "22d"--Fruits--Leave Mauritius--Difference of Time 56

"Light, Ho!"--Ceylon's Spicy Breezes, and Sir John Mandeville--Point de Galle--Ceylonese Troops--d'honies--The Natives--Walled Town--Sandal Shoon and Mohammedan Temple and School--Greek Slaves in Bronze--Hirsute and Citronella--Priessnitz' Doings--Pigeon Express--Ceylon Historically--A Siamese Captain--Departure from Point de Galle--Bay of Bengal--Straits of Malacca--Pulo-Penang--The Cleopatra--Letters--Anchor at Singapore--Malay Boats--The East by Anticipation--Junks--Gong-Beating--The Esplanade--Malay Houses--Sago--Hospitals--Joss-House--Prison--Rajah of Johore--Leave Singapore--First of April--Intense Heat--Cathay--Macao-Hong Kong--Salute of Welcome--Oriental Salute 64

China--The Rebellion--Hong Hospitality--Blenheim Reach--Torrid--Consular Courts--Canton--Feast of the Lanterns--Howqua's Garden--Sallie Baboos--Cum-sing-Moon--Death of an Officer--Opium Hulks--The Traffic--Effects of Opium--Its Sale--Smuggling--Emperor of Japan Dead--Loss of Boat's Crew of the Plymouth--The American Commissioner--Around the Walls of Canton--Chance for a Wife--Temple of Honan--Hong Kong 176

Leave China for Second Visit to Japan--Formosa--Napa-Keang--A Refugee not a Koszta--Proselyting--Dr. Bettelheim and a Loo-Chooan Sangrado--Coal D?p?t--Sheudi--Cumshaws--Off for the Bay of Yedo--Dangerous Navigation--Snow--Macedonian Ashore Foogee Yama--Bay of Yedo--Where to Negotiate--22d of February--Japanese Boats--Visiters--Japanese at Dinner--Swords--Aversion to the Cross--The Landing--The Commissioners--The Audience--Answer to the President's Letter--A Japanese Repast--Their Troops--"T'su-bi-ki"--Coal--A Christian Burial in Japan--American Presents--An Ericsson Two Centuries Ago--A Chaplain--Negotiations--Japanese Presents--Athletes--Entertainment of Japanese Commissioners--Signing of the Treaty--Yezimon--Attempt to reach Yedo--The "Happy Despatch"--Emperor in Disguise--Leave Bay of Yedo for Simoda 204

Simoda or Lower Field--Surveying--Japanese Spies--Temples--Sintooism--Another Pilgrim's Progress--A Night's Lodging--Bargaining--Japanese Women--Indiscriminate Bathing--Turtle Soup--An Adventure--Buddhist Temple--Midnight Visiters--In a Cage--Japanese Epistolarians--A Great Secret--Defences--Foogee Yama 264

Departure for Hakodadi--Ohosima--Printing at Sea--Straits of Sangar--Arrive at Hakodadi--Magnificent Bay--The City--A Stampede--Interview with the Authorities--Arranging the Currency--Purchasing--A Large Temple--Bonzes--Worshipping--Order of the Blind--A View from Hakodadi Yama--A Lion Playing Painter--Ni! Ni!--A Fort--Burials from the Vandalia--Japanese and Ethiopics--Arrival of Functionaries--Characteristic Communications--Hakodadi Eggs--Leave Hakodadi--Fog 292

Foogee--Return to Simoda--Additional Regulations--Veneration for Iyeyas--The Dutch at Desima--Japanese Princes and Mercantile Pursuits--Russia a Bugbear--The Currency Question--The Monetary System of Japan--Buoys--Sample of Coal--Stones for the Washington Monument--Taste for Music--Things by Lottery--Japanese Lacquer and Porcelain--Tea--Japanese Game of Chess, or "Sho-ho-ye"--A Second Robinson Crusoe--Leave Japan for China--Macedonian to Keelong and Manilla--Island of Oo--A Strange sail acting strangely--In Napa Roadstead--Man Deservedly killed--His Highness the Prince-Regent--Russian Admiral Pontiatine--Sermons on Shipboard--The Status of Loo-Choo--Compact with Loo-Choo--Boom-a-Laddying with a Broad Pennant--Great Pomp in our Institutions--Farewell to Loo-Choo 312

Hong Kong Again--Letters--The Intestine Troubles--Triangulating between Hong-Kong, Macao, and Whampoa--The Rebels--Chinese Fighting--An Emperor's Proclamation--Preparations for the Departure of the American Opperbevelhebber--Daybook and Ledger Epistolarians--A Title--Protection--A Jollyboat Steamer--Erudition about Columbus, De Gama, and Others--A Letter from His Excellency Perry--Syce Silver Service--More Mercantile Epistolarians and Parvenuism--No Treaty of Commerce with Japan--Name Great among the Heathen--Departure of Opperbevelhebber in the English Mail-Steamer--Mississippi's Third Visit to Japan--The Last of the "Porpoise"--Arrive at Simoda again--Official Intercourse of Captain Lee with the Authorities--Courtesies--Its-evoos and a Revolver--The Ship Ho-o-maro--Cotton Cloths distributed--Chances of a Trade with Japan--Final Departure from the Country--Supplemental--Exchange of Ratifications of the Treaty--Simoda after an Earthquake--Loss of the Russian Frigate Diana--The Inexorable Laws of Japan--English and French at Nangasaki--The Cruise of the Mississippi around the World 345

THE

JAPAN EXPEDITION.

The cruel treatment which had long been practised by that singular and secluded people, the Japanese, toward American whalers who were thrown by the misfortune of shipwreck upon their coasts, the incentive of mercantile cupidity, and the urgency of personal ambition, induced the government of the United States, in 1852, to project an expedition to Japan, to obtain some assurance from the government of the country against a continuance or repetition of the inhospitality and cruelty inflicted upon our unfortunate citizens, and, if possible, to open the sources of trade. The East India squadron was accordingly augmented for this purpose, and Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry was invested with the command, and charged with the performance of the duty.

After almost conjugating delay in all its moods and tenses, induced by the failure of the boilers of the unfortunate "Princeton," and other causes, his flag-ship was ready for sea in November, 1852; and on the 24th of this month and year, with a desire to visit the hermetic empire, whetted by reading the Dutch historians, I found myself, as commander's clerk, on board of her. At mid-day we had dropped, not below the "kirk or hill," but below the hospital at Norfolk, and night found us ploughing deeply the ocean in the direction of Madeira; and before a very late hour the gleams from the Cape Henry lighthouse disappeared altogether.

The ship was the old steam-frigate "Mississippi," which, as her name is a synonyme for the "father of waters," may be termed the father of our war-steamers, having been the consort of the pioneer ship, the Missouri, destroyed by fire on her first cruise, under the rock of Gibraltar. She had been engaged unremittingly since she first slid from her ways. The power of her engines had pulled from a reef in the Gulf a large ship, and saved to the country the fine frigate Cumberland. The shot and shell from one of her sixty-eights, in the naval battery at Vera Cruz, had contributed to the downfall of the castle of San Juan. She had lain at her anchor near the site of once classic Athens, and in full view of what now remains of the once great city of Hannibal. She had once sought shelter from a Levanter near Brundusium that was, with its Appian way. Her paddle-wheels churning up the water of the Black sea, announced the first appearance of an American man-of-war in that stormy water; and on her decks, surrounded by his late fellows in exile, Kossuth, fresh from the damp of his Kutahia prison, addressed the seething populace around in the harbor of Marseilles, with a fervor and eloquence which almost extenuated so indefensible a violation of the national hospitality which our nation was then extending him; and now the old Mississippi was leaving her own country, bound to the other side of the great globe, bearing the hopes of many, and embarked in a mission which might be successful--which might, perhaps, come to naught.

I said she ploughed deeply on getting beyond the Capes, because, with the considerate intelligence and humanity which preside over our naval affairs, sending boxes of guns to sea with national names, bringing about such sad losses as those of the Albany and the Porpoise, the Mississippi, designed by her constructor to draw eighteen feet of water, and to carry four hundred and fifty tons of coal, has her bunkers enlarged to the capacity of six hundred tons, additional lines of copper put upon her, and goes out drawing twenty-one feet, her guards but a short distance from the water. In this state we left the United States; her decks not yet cleared of the stores hastily put aboard for the different messes; the lengthened visages of sad people all around, thinking whether they had omitted anything in their notes of last adieu sent back by the Pilot; the mustering and stationing of a new crew at their division and fire quarters; the making everything ready for sea, all presented such a novel scene to one who was on a man-of-war underway for the first time, that he was too much engrossed in observing, to tell his "native land good-night," turning to do which, he found that it had "faded," not over the "waters blue," but behind an expanse of dull slate-colored ocean, which the heavy striking of our deeply-immersed paddles was slowly and drowsily disturbing. There was none of the graceful undulatory motion, and bellying out of the great white canvass of the sailing-ship, which writers of much imagination and nautical turn of mind, delight so much to sing about. It was only the sturdy prose of a warlike old steamer belching from the jaws of her great funnel columns of thick black smoke, which separated at her mainmast, or rolled away in dense masses astern, perversely holding on her way to the port of her destination. The "loguey" motion of the ship, while it kept her decks wet from the swashing of a cross sea over her head rail, at least had the advantage to a landsman of enabling him to get on his "sea-legs" all the sooner.

The scene at night on a man-of-war, is one full of interest to him who sees it for the first time. The decks, busily thronged during the day by the men in the performance of their duties, at an early hour of the night, with the exception of the watch, are apparently deserted; a number equal to the population of a small village, crowded close together, swing in their pendent beds in oblivious sleep, which the exertions of the day makes more profound, leaving nothing to disturb the quiet of the vessel, save the half-hour striking of the ship's bell, and the quick responses of the different look-outs assuming their watchfulness, or the drumming of the wheels as they send the yesty water along the side.

Funchal, from the water, presents a very attractive appearance to the traveller who sees it for the first time. I don't know when I have been more impressed with the beauty of any scene, than when from the deck of our ship, with a delicious atmosphere that obliterated all recollection of the month being December, a setting sun more keenly defining and causing to loom up each object, I looked upon its bright houses, made more so by the deep red of their tiles, as they rose in a terraced crescent, one above another, the convent of Santa Clara, the deep-hued verdure that filled up the interstices of the picture, the Loo Rock fort, and the cathedral in the foreground, with just enough of time-stain on its towers to make more venerable its front, and the tortuous paved road, running up the hills like an immense, stony serpent, terminating at the church of our "Lady of the Mount," elevated nineteen hundred feet above the sea; and the vineyards in the distance.

On reaching the residence of the American consul, we dismounted and partook of a lunch, which his hospitality invariably provides for his visiting countrymen. It is unnecessary to tell with what gusto, men who eighteen days before were gathered around a stove in their own land, were now in the genial air of Madeira, windows open, and perfume coming in all around from beautiful plants, partook of the rich treat of guavas, the small banana, and the Mandarin orange just plucked from the tree that thrust itself in the casement. The snack over, we ascended to the consul's observatory; a fine glass, mounted on a tripod, swept the offing and anchorage, giving every object much nearness. Our old ship lying stately at her anchors, was just saluting with twenty-one guns the Portuguese flag floating at her fore, which was promptly returned by the fort on Loo Rock. Around and below us were patches of green-vine and trellis, amid an expanse of red tile roofs, on many of which were placed wine-casks that they might sweeten in the sun. We then descended to the wine-houses, where butt after butt of large dimensions, reached by foot ladders, of Tinta and Serchal, and "Navy," told how the delightful grape of the island had swelled into fullness, and then been crushed into wine. Ah! Clarence, thou shouldst have lived till now.

But we were on the way to the Church of the Lady of the Mount. It was not very long before we dismounted at the foot of the long flight of discolored stone steps that led to its front. On reaching the terrace we looked down on the view below us. The town had dwindled into a white-washed amphitheatre; the ships were not quite as much changed as the objects to the sight of Edgar from the cliffs of Dover, but appeared greatly reduced in proportion. I could scarcely believe that the Mississippi, riding at her anchors in the bay, was the floating home of over three hundred human beings!

On entering the church, we were met at the door by a pussy snuff-taking priest, whose besmeared outer garment looked as if it would have been all the better for the application of a cake of brown soap in connection with some of the clear water which coursed down the mountain past his sanctuary. The interior of the edifice displayed the most garish taste, and with its sickening amount of gilding, was embellished in the most tawdry manner. There was the customary proportion of relics, and the paintings around looked very old. Our stay was short, and after leaving a small sum for our footing, as Jack would say, we returned to our steeds, leaving the wax figure of the lady patroness of the island in a glass case in the rear, looking as demure and as indifferent to our presence as when we entered. The whilom legends of the devout tell of her, at a time when breadstuffs were scarce, having left her crystal enclosure and gone to hurry on cargoes of grain to Funchal, which, like Buckingham, were "on the sea."

The descent to the Coral--a deep mountain gorge of singular and circular formation--is by a narrow shelf of a road cut in the face of a precipitous hill, and running in inclined planes. One does not entirely fancy the task of going down; but then the horses are rough-shod, with reference to such places, are remarkably sure footed, and move instinctively with much caution. On getting to the bottom, the road by which we had just come looked like a mere thread-line on the face of the cliff that hung over us. Its depth is some sixteen hundred feet, and you look up to the azure above you as from an immense pit. We stopped at a small mill situated at the lowest point of the Coral, to give our horses a little time to blow, and our borro querros a little country wine, which was likewise patronized by ourselves. I noticed around clumps of pines planted for fuel, and a number of exquisite flowers growing spontaneously. We ascended from the Coral by a road equally as narrow and precipitous as the one by which we had gone down, only proving less clear; a large rock which had caved from the bank nearly barricaded the path, and on reaching it my horse, whose reputation I subsequently ascertained to be one for shying, came quite near treating himself and rider to a Tarpean fate. On reaching the top, we were refreshed by a breeze redolent with perfume, and turned into a road enclosed on either side by hedges of bona fide geranium. It is feeding on this sweet plant that imparts to the meat of the native cattle, when eaten, a peculiar flavor; and the honey of the bee who gathers his sweets from it, is strongly impregnated with its pleasant odor. No wonder that the attenuated invalid should resort to thee, beautiful Madeira, to revive his drooping spirits. We returned to the city in the evening, by a road running past pleasant gardens, and by a bridge that spans the canal which receives the quickly-swollen mountain streams, and put ourselves in charge of mine host of Guilletti's.

The next day I landed near the governmental house, where was staying as a guest the invalided empress mother of Brazil, who had, with a broken constitution, gone to Madeira, since to die. I visited the charitable hospital of the place, which fronts on the grand plaza. No sight can be more loathsome than the one to be seen in the wards of a Portuguese hospital, unless it be that of the dead mendicants that you pass in the streets of some of the cities of China. The most terrible ailments that flesh is heir to, and the greatest suffering that "age, ache, and penury, can lay on nature," were present all around. And then there were others in whom the flame of life, after flickering lowly, had just gone out. I was very willing to get away from the apartment, and after descending to a dimly-lighted chapel below, where a solitary priest was engaged in prayer for the repose of the dead and dying above, and glancing at its characteristic decorations, I left the building. The edifice itself is quite an extended one, though it has no architectural beauty to attract attention. Over its main entrance, cut elaborately in a massive block of stone, are the royal arms of Portugal.

Good-by, Madeira, whose tropical beauty was so fresh to me, and the picture of whose loveliness will be ever in mind.

"Long, long be my heart with such memories filled."

On the afternoon of the 15th of December, all hands being on board, with coal dust, and wine for distinguished functionaries in the U. S. on our decks, an orange and banana smell over the ship, and six little Madeira bullocks, who, upon being hoisted in by the horns, no sooner reached the decks, than they indulged in a series of cavortings, to the no small amusement of the old shell-back denizens of the forecastle, we lifted anchor, and steamed away from Funchal, to the south. At nightfall Madeira's lines of green, and basalt, and red soil, were lost to view.

We were now entering on the longest run we anticipated making during the cruise. On the second morning out at an early hour we made Palma, one of the westernmost of the Canary islands. When the sun came up from behind it, defining its sharp peaks and irradiating the whole outline of the island, I had the happy consciousness that it fully compensated me for the rupture of my matinal slumbers, necessary to get a glimpse of it. The celebrated peak of Teneriffe was wrapped in cloud when we passed, and I did not see it; though others with "optics sharp," at one time, said they discerned it in the extreme distance. We subsequently passed in sight of the Cape de Verde islands. During the day we ran into what is termed the incipient northeast trades, and as our coal was not deemed sufficient for the run before us, the engines were stopped, twenty tons of water blown from the boilers, fires extinguished, sufficient number of the paddles removed from the wheels, which were lashed, the large smoke stack lowered on the hurricane deck, and the ship put under sail. Many of us thought if the Japanese could only get a sight of the funnel as it lay in its chocks like another huge "peace-maker" when we reached their country, they would prove quite accessible. The spars of the Mississippi being tall, she spread a great deal of canvass, but the wind continuing quite light we made but little progress for several days. A whale saluted us by tapping his head against our port guard. On the 18th we tacked ship, and on the 21st we got the trade-winds proper, and under studding-sails ran quite well. Life on the ocean, monotonous, nearly, at all times, was rendered more so to us, by the transition from a steamer to a sailing ship. To study on shipboard, or even to read with profit, as I had heard before, is next to impossible, unless it may be with an old sea-dog to whom for some forty years the "ocean has been a dwelling-place." Try it, and you will find your eyes wandering from the type, and your thoughts bolting from the subject, like a refractory quarter-horse over a track railing. The weekly routine of the ship was comprised in going to quarters, morning and evening, for inspection; and once a week the whole ship's company are beat to general quarters, when the magazines are open, the powder-boys busy in passing and repassing cartridge-boxes, the guns are cast loose and worked by their crews, boarders are called away, pikemen are posted to repel boarders, marines are stationed near them, &c.; the master gives his orders for sail-trimmers to put stoppers on such portions of the rigging, as an active imagination suggests must have been shot away, and all the evolutions of an actual engagement at sea are gone through; together with exercise at fire-quarters, when an alarm with the ship's bell is rung, at which sentinels are placed at the falls of each boat, so that in an actual emergency there could be none of the inhuman desertion and infamous flight which marked the sad catastrophe of the "Arctic." All of these exercises, which increase the discipline of a crew and the efficiency of a ship, are of course possessed of more interest to those officers who have military duties to perform on board, than others, who are too apt to experience the indifference of the Emerald isle native, who being informed that the house was on fire, replied it was nothing to him, he "was only a boarder."

The weather we experienced in the trades was very pleasant, though it became hot with much suddenness. Pretty white clouds trooped across the sky like pilgrims in white, bound to Mecca. The regular waves as they came chasing one another from the horizon, rolled the whitest caps, and the sea was of the bluest, particularly as the lashed arms of our wheels divided the water in their passage, and the wheel-houses keeping off the direct rays of the sun, made it exquisitely transparent. Though the dews at night were so heavy that the moisture would run like rain off the awnings, yet the shadows of the big sails that had gone to sleep from the steadiness of the wind, made deeper by the bright moonlight and the illuminated image of the engine of our Savior's agony--the "southern cross"--with its twinkling stars looking down from the sky, made one forget that the distance from the coast of Africa was not the greatest, and that the wearing of a thick coat at night, was a decided improvement on a thin one. Porpoises were almost in the daily practice of thrusting their swinish nozzles upon public attention, and innumerable graceful little flying-fish, disturbed by our passage through the water, or chased by the dolphin, flew continually across the waves ahead of us, like flocks of sparrows over briers. But then we had the smallpox on board, on the person of a Portuguese boy shipped at Funchal, and the possibility of contracting this loathsome disease, or the possession of an arm rather sore from vaccination, did not make the run more pleasurable.

The events of Christmas day were, that we were in 13? 23? north latitude, and 23? 48? west longitude; a very pleasant repast was spread by the ward-room, where "home with all its endearments" was drunk in Serchal; and a poor little bird very much resembling the partridge of our own country, was blown aboard. This little representative of Africa's feathery race fell a victim to the taxidermist aboard. What he thought previous to his demise, of the day, I know not, but to me it was not Christmas; and no mental effort could "bring back the features that joy used to wear" when the mistletoe was hung, and the back log placed; nor could the defunct gobbler, who lately bestrode our coop, sole tenant, now lying in very brown state on a festive table, even provoke the pleasant memories.

The next day, promulgated by Commodore M. C. Perry, and signed by the then hiatus secretary of the navy, Mr. Swallow-Barn Kennedy, was read on the quarter-deck, General Order, No. 1, which, it is said, had a precedent in the expedition of Lieut. Wilkes, but which was as bad as its precedent, and equally unjust, being based upon the ridiculous premise that because a government may have claim upon your thews and sinews, or your mental aptitude in the line of your profession, that it likewise has property in the product of your brain, no matter in what other way, out of your calling, it may be exercised. This order was violated subsequently in China, in the grossest way, with the tacit consent of the commander-in-chief who first issued it; as if the prominent, in rule, or law, under our government were any more exempt from its provisions, than that the humblest are not beneath its control. I say in the grossest way, because he permitted, if he did not personally supervise, the preparation of an account of the movements of his squadron, for the colonial English newspapers at Hong-Kong, in preference to our own; papers too, whose columns at other times displayed the village squabbling, which marked the thunders, of the "Eatanswill Gazette" in Pickwick, in response to the shafts of "The Independent."

The following is the order:--

"GENERAL ORDER, NO. 1

"In promulgating the subjoined extract from the instructions addressed to me by the honorable secretary of the navy, and bearing date 13th ult., I have to enjoin upon all officers and other persons attached to the vessels under my command, or in any other way connected with the squadron, a most rigid adherence to all the requirements of said order.

"Whatever notes or drawings may be prepared by the officers or other persons before mentioned, whether by special order, or by their own volition, will be endorsed by the respective parties, and transmitted through the captain of the fleet to the commander-in-chief, who will in due time lodge them at the navy department, from whence they may be reclaimed as it may suit the convenience of the government.

"All arms, curiosities, and specimens of natural history, are also to become the property of the United States, unless voluntarily relinquished by the commander-in-chief.

"A subject of great importance to the success of the expedition, will present itself to your mind in relation to communications to the prints and newspapers, touching the movements of your squadron, as well as in relation to all matters connected with the discipline and internal regulations of the vessels composing it. You will therefore enjoin upon all under your command to abstain from writing to friends and others upon these subjects, the journals and private notes of the officers and other persons in the expedition must be considered as belonging to the government until permission be received from the navy department to publish them."

The effect of this order was to cause officers to decline keeping journals, and only note down their previous conceptions and present impressions of things and places seen, in their letters to relatives.

We crossed the equator on the 3d of January, in longitude 11? west, and when the "sun came up on the left" on the morning of the 10th, right ahead, perhaps in the very track of the Northumberland, looming sternly up from out the ocean, like the dark high walls of an ocean-prison that it is, we saw St. Helena. The tallest peak, that of Diana, is visible in the clouds for a great distance. At mid-day we anchored in the roadstead fronting James' town, and shortly after saluted the flag of England with twenty-one guns. At no time, during a cruise of two years and over, did I hear any reverberation from our heavy pieces, half so magnificent. The sound of each explosion, at first seemed to recoil from the face of the immense rock which upreared itself in front, and then as if gathering strength from the temporary rebuff, it broke, in and up the wedge-shaped valley in which James' town is situated, and appearing for a moment to die away, again went on over gorge and peak, tumbling, roaring, thundering in the distance, as if "Jura answered through her misty shroud." The salute was returned by one of the number of forts that were looming away above us on the island.

In shore of us lay a number of sharp rakish-looking little vessels, slavers, that had been captured by the English cruisers, on the African station, and brought to the island to be adjudged by a local court of admiralty; better than our system where captor and prize have to return frequently, great distances to the United States.

The landing at St. Helena is made on a mole at one end of the small beach that lies only immediately in front of James' town. A few minutes' walk, and crossing a drawbridge, over a moat, you pass through an embattled wall, from which some iron pieces frown down on you, by a lofty gate, at which sentinels are always posted. On getting inside, a triangular street made of rolled gravel is before you. On the left are the guard quarters, the governor's house and offices, and a public garden; on the right a church, hotel, and the ascent to Ladder hill, where is situated the highest fort of the place, reached by six hundred and twenty-five steps. Right before you, running from the apex of the triangle, is the road which leads to the spot which has made St. Helena famous, and England infamous for ever. As you ascend this road, you may look down on the settlements of the Chinese who have left the flowery kingdom to dwell in this place of isolation and desolation; also see the fine English soldier as he is being closely drilled from company to battalion, not by duke of Cambridge, or Earl Cardigan, all of whose bravery will not make up for want of tactical knowledge, but by sergeants.

The spot was pointed out to me where Bertrand, Gourgaud, Las Casas, and Marchand, erected the tent to put the body under after exhumation, which took place amid wind and rain. All around the tomb was wet and miry; in times of heavy rains, now, the tomb is not unfrequently filled with water. The work of disinterment was begun after midnight, and by seven o'clock in the morning the stones that closed the lower vault were raised. The anvil employed by the men engaged upon the work to keep their tools in order, sank at every blow, and the men were ankle deep in mud. I have nothing pathetic or philosophic to add, upon the spot;

"Si ta tombe est vide Napoleon? Ton nom ne remplit il pas l'universe."

Ascending the hill on the other side, by a winding path which led up through a pretty garden, I stopped at the little residence of "Hutt's gate," formerly occupied by General Bertrand, with his family, previous to moving out to the building in the vicinity of Longwood. After resting here, I footed it a mile further, to the outer entrance to the grounds of Longwood. The prospect before me during this walk was of the dreariest and most desolate kind, presenting the most marked contrast to the verdure at the tomb. It was along this road that Napoleon walked to his favorite spring, and over which his Chinese coolies carried his water from it. After passing a dilapidated wall and gate, you enter upon a lawn of some hundred yards, on one side of which are straggling fir-trees, bent down in the same direction by the continual pressure of the southeast trade-winds, which are felt at this part of the island very strongly, and the other side was hedged by a long row of the stately aloe. In a few minutes you are in front of a dilapidated low building, with a small verandah in front of one of its wings, and partly enclosed in an old stone wall. This is Longwood as it now is. When I reached it, the place looked abandoned in the extreme, with the exception of the cows and a scrawny donkey that browsed around, or a solitary turkey who broke the silence with his gobble. There was the decayed and silent guard-house and signal-tower, its halyards rotted away and pole tottering, from which the restless bunting was for ever telling by day to the sedulous jailer at "Plantation House" how his great prisoner at Longwood, after the mental exhaustion of dictation, or the fatigues of a morning walk, now slept, or that, having slept, he was now feeding his pet fishes in the little pond in the rear of his cell abode. This quiet was soon broken; a dirty-faced, uncombed-haired English girl approached, and informed us that the fee for admission to the house was two shillings--Longwood, like the grounds around the tomb, being leased by the government to others, for the purpose of speculating on the interest of association connected with the great emperor. If we are the "dollar people," can any man who has ever visited English domain say, that they are not entitled to the name of "shilling nation!"

The first room you enter on going into the house, is the one in which, amid storm and rain, and when

"Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leapt the live thunder,"

Just across the road I visited the new house of Longwood, its walls sound, its porticoes and floors in a perfect state of preservation, and its spacious rooms unoccupied. Napoleon visited it once, but feeling that one jail was no less one for being better built than another, spurned this offer of the English to conciliate him in his cage, as the lion spurns the leavings of the jackal though he die in his den.

On my way back to James' town, I passed in sight of the grounds and former mansion of

"The paltry jailer and the prying spy"--

"Plantation house"--but had no desire to visit it.

At James' town there is a very fine bust of Napoleon, said to have been made from a plaster cast of the face, taken after death; the nose is much more exquisitely chiselled and beautiful than any other representation to be seen of his face.

Before nightfall on the 11th of January, we were under way for the Cape of Good Hope from St. Helena.

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