Japan and the Japanese

620 JAPAN. A. D. 18171834.
all the
princes, must necessarily delay the answer tc the president's
letter, and suggested
the danger of confusion, or "broil," should the
squadron come back at so unseasonable a moment.
Undeterred, however, by this representation, on the 12th of Feb-
ruary, 1854, Commodore Perry reappeared in the bay of Jedo,
with three steam frigates, four sloops-of-war, and two store-ships,
and the steamers taking
the
sailing
vessels in tow, they all moved
up to the American anchorage.
About two weeks were spent here in fixing upon a place to
negotiate, the Japanese importuning the commodore to go back to
Kama Kura, twenty miles below Uragawa, or, at least, to the latter
place, while he insisted upon going to Jcdo. As he declined to
yield, and caused the channel to be sounded out within four miles
of Jedo, they proposed, as the place of
meeting, the village of Yo-
kohama, containing about ten thousand people, and situated on tho
shore, just opposite the anchorage of the ships. To this the com-
modore agreed, and the ships drew in and moored in line, with
broadsides
bearing upon the shore, and covering an extent of five miles.
" On the 8th of March," says a letter dated on board the Yandalia,
and published in the New York Journal of Commerce, " the
day appointed for the first meeting, about nine hundred officers,
seamen and marines, armed to the teeth, landed, and, with drums
DCating and colors flying, were drawn up on the beach, ready to
receive the commodore. As soon as he stepped on shore the bands
struck up, salutes were fired, the marines presented arms, and, fol-
lowed by a long escort of officers, he marched up between the lines
and entered the house erected by the Japanese expressly for the oc-
casion. Thousands of Japanese soldiers crowded the shore and the
neighboring elevations, looking on with a good deal of curiosity and
interest. The house was nothing but a plain frame building, hastily
put up, containing one large room the audience hall and several
smaller, for the convenience of attendants, &e. The floor was
covered with mats, and very pretty painted screens adorned the
sides. Long tables and benches, covered with red woollen stuff,
placed parallel to each other, three handsome braziers, filled with
burning charcoal, on the floor between them, and a few violetcolored
crape hangings suspended from the ceiling, completed tho
furniture of the room. As we entered we took our seats at one of
tho tables. The Japanese commissioners soon came in, and placed