Japan and the Japanese

JAPANESE EMBASSY ARRIVE AT WASHINGTON. 551
for them at Willard's Hotel. To protect them against imposi-
tion, and to provide for their comfort and security, three navy
officers who had visited Japan were appointed to the general
oversight of the embassy while it remained in this country.
On the 14th they visited General Cass, the Secretary of State,
and on the next day had a formal audience from the President.
Though received as ministers plenipotentiary, their powers appeared
to be limited to an exchange of the ratifications of the
treaty, and to obtaining information as to the relative value of
Japanese and foreign coins, a point which still remained un-
settled in Japan, and was the occasion of much complaint on
the part of the foreign residents.
The Japanese remained in Washington till the 8th of June,
spending their time in visits to the various public buildings, and
a good deal of it in shopping, for which many of them seemed
to have a great fancy. After passing through Baltimore, where
they remained one night only, they spent a week in Philadel-
phia, where the Mint and its processes were special objects of
interest. From Philadelphia they went on to New York,
where they were received at the Battery by an escort of five
or six thousand men of the New York militia, and conveyed
through an immense crowd to the quarters which had been
provided for them at the Metropolitan Hotel. Here they remained
for two weeks, and on the 1st of July embarked on
board the United States steam frigate Niagara, to return to
Japan by the Cape of Good Hope, being thus the first of their
nation to make the circumnavigation of the globe.
The time of their stay in this countiy was limited, by express
orders brought with them from Japan, and they declined the
numerous invitations which they received to visit other cities,
and also an excursion which the government had planned to
the Falls of Niagara. The short time they had to spend was
no doubt more advantageously employed by restricting their
observations to two or three places. Of the seventy-six persons,
of which the embassy and its suite were composed, forty-six
filled the position of attendants or servants to the remaining