J. W. Spalding

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In strolling the streets of Simoda you see old crones, arranging, in the open air, their warp for weaving. The personal pulchritude of the cadaverous-complexioned Japanese women, is not much under the best circumstances, but when it is remembered that on marrying, they shave off their eyebrows, and blacken their teeth with some iron rust and acid, as a badge of the marital state, their appearance becomes most repulsive. ”

“ One is struck with the fullness, beauty, and glossiness of the hair of the natives, especially when he bears in mind, that those who do not shave their heads, walk uncovered under the hot sun of their clime. I had some curiosity to find out the secret of this. They use on their hair twice a-week the juice of limes, obtained by boiling them, and then dress it with an oil pressed cold from the queen cocoa, scented with “citronella,” a very singular and powerful perfume which they distil on the island. ”

“ Below, long trains of pack-horses loaded with charcoal were continually traversing the plain; the fishing villages were busy with their seines; the town showed like a narrow strip of houses, and our ships and the three hundred junks in the harbor, went but a little way to fill up the great water space around. Ours were no doubt the first Anglo-Saxon feet, that ever trod this height. We found a look-out house up there, where the movement of every ship passing through the straits of Sangar into the sea of Japan is noted. ”

“ Their manner of striking, which is by a piece of green wood swung horizontally on the outside of the bell, gives a delightful softness to the sound, while the proximity to the earth increases the distance at which it may be heard. The carving and frieze work about the columns at the entrance to this temple are as elaborate and fantastic as can be imagined, while the little hydras and animal images perched upon the eaves and roof, are as numerous as on a Chinese Joss house. The interior is very plain, and the Sintooist worships no idol. ”

“ At the bath-houses in Simoda the sexes of all ages bathe indiscriminately together.
The Japanese in their intercourse with us, were always pertinacious in assuring us, that they were not Chinese; indeed they would have been very indignant to be thought of a kindred race. They did not take long to find out, that we were not Dutch. They would mention derisively the fact of the length of intercourse the Chinese had had with other countries, and yet, that they had never built square-rigged vessels like ours; they intimated more enterprise than this for themselves. ”

“ At Whampoa, off a collection of most forbidding-looking houses, built over the muddy water, composing the Chinese town, there lay the foreign ships, the mandarin watch-boats, the junks, the chop-hulks from which stores are supplied, the protestant and catholic floating-bethels for the good of souls, and the well-armed opium-schooners whose cargoes destroy bodies. ”

“ It is almost to be regretted that the English should have consented to treat with the enemy, and given up this fort, when they had the whole city at their feet, and could have given these treacherous, malignant, cruel, dictatorial, self-conceited, vain people, a lesson in enlightenment, which would have lasted them a long time, and procured a little more deference for the “rest of mankind.” ”

“ Walking past you in groups, their hands clasped one with another, or stretched on their back, the rays of the sun kept off by the shady branches of the palm, or sitting under a roof made of its leaves, having his head shaved, or the hairs of his moustache plucked out here and there, to make the outline more graceful, is the semi-denuded and meat-hating Lascar. ”

“ The bay of Hakodadi is most spacious and majestic in its sweep, and for facility of entrance and security of anchorage, it can scarcely be surpassed by any other in the world. The width at its mouth is so great that no two fortifications could command or protect it, yet the curvature of the high land around is such as to afford the greatest shelter. ”

“ Their larger boats called prahus, with their graceful latine sails, move with great rapidity through the water, and are said to be as elegantly modelled as any yacht “America.” Indeed, some are of the opinion that the fast modern pleasure-boat, owes its origin to the prahus of the Malay.
Thackeray, in his “Cornhill to Cairo,” has most pleasantly and truly described the keen relish which is afforded to travel if one could be taken up, and suddenly translated—or immersed as it were—among a people entirely different in complexion, habit, and costume, from his own. ”

“ The natives in the small boats, having gotten more confidence, on our approach, pulled as near to us as the revolving-wheel would permit them. We ran in sight of the large volcanic island, named on the Dutch charts as Vries, but called Oho Sima, or Bird island, by the Japanese. Evening saw us threading our way through a group of islands, whose barren surfaces presented a desolate sight. One of them was Fatisisio, the penal settlement or Botany Bay of Japan. ”

“ No wonder agriculture is so fostered by the government, and that once a year the imperial cousin, &c., to the planetary system, should, by holding the plough in the field, attempt the impossibility of adding dignity to the labors of the husbandman.
A few hours’ run after entering the Woosung, enabled us to descry the Susquehanna and the Plymouth, the bend of the river, and the low and level paddy-fields, causing them to appear as if enclosed by dry land. The salute of the former came to us over any quantity of waving rice. ”

“ Having to remain at Simoda some time, a party under Lieutenant Maury was at once set at work to make a survey of the harbor. The officers spent their time ashore in strolls through the town, visits to the temples, rambles into the country, occasionally taking a gun, though there was very little to kill. The people, when we landed, appeared glad to see us, and were always inclined to be sociable, but for the omnipresence of their police. They would gather around and examine the cloth of our clothes with much curiosity—particularly the old women—and the designs on our buttons. ”

“ On the 6th of March a mariner died on the Mississippi of an affection of the brain. The sloop-of-war Saratoga, after a boisterous passage from Shanghae, and being blown off from the mouth of the bay of Yedo, arrived and anchored in the line. This dropping in of the ships and the subsequent arrival of another, the Japanese did not understand, and perhaps thought with Macbeth:—
“Will the line stretch out to the crack o’doom.” ”

“ The streets are narrow, and laid out like those of Peking, and unpaved, and the reception that we met with on walking them, was anything but sociable; not that the mass of the people, who, after getting a little over the trepidation which our unexpected arrival produced, were not inclined to be friendly, but because of the surveillance of their suspicious and jealous officials. On our approach the shops were closed, and the way in front entirely deserted, while as soon as you had passed, there was a great throng gazing at you from the rear. ”

“ The upper class would not use them, the scanty wardrobe of the poorer class does not need them, unless they could be educated to breeches, nor could they purchase them. There are times when they can not get enough to eat; indeed it is said, that there was a famine in the land at the time of the visit of the Morrison, in 1836. The fact is the Japanese are a people of few wants, and no luxuries, and the great trade prophesied with that country, should we ever get a commercial treaty, is a mere myth and exists in the brain of visionaries alone. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The boats, as they pulled in, presented a fine sight; the “flower-flag,” as the Chinese call it, waving gracefully from the stern of each boat; the bright muskets shining in the sun, and the epaulettes glistening. The landing was done in fine order, and with great promptitude, under the command of Major Zeilen, of the marine corps. Each man, as the boat touched the beach, jumped ashore, and took his proper place in line, which, when formed, presented a bold front, notwithstanding officers and men all told, it scarcely exceeded four hundred men ”

“ Considering their size, it was a sight that the harbor of Hong Kong had never before witnessed, and will no doubt be many a day before it shall see again. At half-past ten in the morning, everything being ready, agreeably to signal the ships got under way, the Susquehanna leading out, and the Powhatan and Mississippi following, with the Lexington and Southampton in tow. As the flag-ship passed the Winchester, the English admiral manned his rigging, cheered, and fired a parting salute, which was returned promptly. ”

“ The sailors in the boats were ordered to cut his line if he made fast to them. He was much angered as our wheels left him in the distance. We regarded his proposition for a tow, as cool as a fellow who would play spy on you all day, and then ask you to take him home in a carriage at night. On our way back we passed through a flotilla of their boats, when our chief engineer opened our steam-whistle. Never were human beings more astounded, when the unearthly noise reached their ears, the fellows at the sculls dropped their oars and stood aghast. ”

“ As they did not appear to be aimed at us, but probably intended as signals, or to warn us not to come to anchor in their bay, we kept on. A few moments after stopping our wheels, long sharp-built boats of pine, fastened with copper, and ornamented at the prow with a black tassel, that had not been previously observed under the shadow of a high bluff, swarmed off under oar and sail, and surrounded the ships. They were all fully manned with men in uniform, and an old chap leaned over a rail in the stern. ”

“ When a lame man sees another walking, or a pedestrian sees another riding, would he not be glad to be in his place? How much more to us, who, for our whole lives, could not go beyond 30° E. and W., or 25° N. to S., when we behold you come riding on the high wind, and careering over the vast waves, with lightning speed coasting along the five continents, does it appear as if the lame had a way to walk, or the walker an opportunity to ride! ”

“ With the Americans, as indeed with all Christian people, it is considered a sacred duty to receive with kindness, and to succor and protect all, of whatever nation, who may be cast upon their shores; and such has been the course of the Americans, with respect to all Japanese subjects who have fallen under their protection.
The government of the United States desires to obtain from that of Japan, some positive assurance that persons who may be hereafter shipwrecked on the coast of Japan, or driven by stress of weather into her ports, shall be treated with humanity. ”