The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-02 00:00:00

property of the Damios or higher class of nobles.
Vastgardensand. small forests were seen enclosed

within the walls surrounding these princely-looking
dom'iins, giving quite a peculiar character to the
whole city. Nothing perhaps is more striking to
the eye of a stranger on first penetrating through
the commercial part of the city into the official
quarters than the vast dimensions of all these feudal

princes' residences in regard to space. The streets
are at least a hundred yards wide ; the fronts of the
houses, that is, the one-storied range of courtyard
buildings, often extend nearly a quarter of a mile,
and behind lies garden ground, and beautiful tim-
ber can be seen towering above, and giving a semi-
regal air to the whole quarter. No business is ever
seen here. Nothing but retainers are ever visible

with the armoriarcognizances of their masters
worked on the back and sleeves of their tunic, often
with bow and arrows slung. Once I met a guard
with musket and bayonet fixed, which, if they did
not come from European workshops, would to all
appearance have done the best no discredit.
One would think a score oa, two of these great
hereditary chiefs, princes in their own right,
each with five or ten thousand armed retainers

within his town house, and grounds, would be
but dangerous guests to the Tycoon, brought as
they are under durance, or at least compulsion,
by the ruling power to eat their substance away
from their estates and sources of revenue. Still
this same arrangement of cheek and counter-
check has been in existence far many generations.
without, it would seem, any serious attempt to over-
throw the governmental system. Perhaps this is
to he explained by the fact, already stated, that
power has passed in no small degree from the'
Tycoon's hands, as it did from the Mikados, and
now resides chiefly in an executive council of state,
consisting of six ministers, and these again are
held in no small check by the Damios and feudal
chiefs of the higher order, amounting to some 370 ;
and although these do not actually form a chamber
of lords nor assemble in a body at stated periods,
nothing legislative can be done withouttheir assent
obtained after they have been convened. It does
not appear that they interfere with the executive
rule of the empire, it being recognised as the proper
business of the Tycoon and council of ministers to
apply and cause to be respected all existing laws
and customs. But neither the Tycoon nor the
ministers separately or combined can :venture upon
a change in these without their sanction and a
farther confirmation by the phantom sovereign of
Miaco, who shut up for life within its garden walls
is occasionally recalled to a conciousness of an
outer world by being required to give his authority
for some legislative action or fundamental change
of which he can know nothing. Ido not hear that
it was ever refused: why should it be ? What can
it matter to him, poor recluse, how they govern or
misgovern the empire in mockery called his ? But
I must attempt to tell you what Kanagawa (the
port of Yeddo) and the capital itself present to
the eye of a stranger for the first time ushered into
this mysterious residence of feudal chiefs and re-
tainers of the middle ages, girdled with moat and
bastion, and in still wider sweep encircled by a
city, the extent of which no European yet can tell,
and still less guess at the number of its swarming
population. Is it two mil ions o: three? I cannot
pretend to tell you. It is another London, which
requires a twelvemonth to learn by heart, and a
day's journey to traverse from end to end. Widely
scattered along the western face of the bay, ascend-
ing by a gentle rise from the water's edge, and
carried over several hills, or rather a belt of hills,
of no great elevation ; its low one-storied
houses (a ground floor and a garret), half-con-
cealed by the profusion of timber and foliage
enclosed within the Damio's grounds,l7,and
Buddhist temples plentifully scattered in all direc-
tions, give, upon the whole, a pleasant civilised air,
but something quite different from any European
city. There is nothing in the way of architecture or
public building to mark a great city and the capital
of a people far advanced in the arts of life and civili-
sation ; one very good reason for which is the fre-
quency of earthquakes. A few high and solid walls
appear for defence round the two inner moated
cities. These, rising some 30 or 40 feet from the
water's edge, are built with great blocks of granite,
curiously let into each other, every one at different
angles, and, in their pecularity of construction and
enormuus strength, seem to be able to resist even
the earthquakes; but every other dwelling in the
city, with obvious and especial reference to such
conditions, is built on one model, of a framework of
timber, strongly girded together, the sides filled up
between them with a network of bamboo, and never
more than two storeys in height, if a ground-floor
and low garret deserve that title, and I should say
are admirably fitted for resisting any ordinary shock.
Even now, while writing, the whole house and the
earth under my feet have been vibrating for more
than a minute in a way not altogether comfortable;
but the house showed no signs of distress, whatever
the inmates may have done. And uow that you
must have gained some kind of general idea of the
position and outward aspect of Yeddo, come with
me all through the streets. There are some officers
of the American or British men-of-war in harbour
going on a shopping cruise, and although neither
you nor I wear;crowns on our caps, or epaulettes
on our shoulders, they are numerous enough, and
busy enough with their own eager curiosity, to
allow us to join the party without appearing de
&op. And now the boats have neared the shoal
water, and we must all get out into those two or
three miserable-looking little flat-bottomed punts,
and be dragged over the mud on shore for the next
quarter of a mile. The Tycoon need not have
surrounad such a landing with well-trimmed bat-
teries as he has done—(how I wish I had some
sheep grazing on their green-looking slopes in
this sheepless, beefless land !)—for it would require
an amphibious race to make a hostile descent
here. And now we are arrived ; not even the mud-
sliders can get us further. What are we to do ? It
is quite plain we have 20 yards of water, reaching
half-way up our legs, either to wade through, or
trust ourselves on the backs of our rice-eating
friends there„ who seem willing to give us a lift. It
is done. Now we clamber up a shabby wooden pier
and rather dilapidated stone stops, and stand on the
Great Tocado or road at the entrance of Yeddo,
leading from the capital to every part of the em-
pire, and along which the Princes—the Damios and
Lamas—hereditary and merely official take their
way, surrounded by their retainers, when paying
their annual visit to their " well-beloved cousin"
the Tycoon; or going their way rejoicing to regain
their liberty within their own territories, leaving
their wives and children behind; which may or may
not, I have not had time to ascertain, be an arrange-
ment not altogether disagreeable to the parties con-
cerned. But it does not seem based on any great
regard for the joys of domesticity. And here is
one passing, •by the most fortunate concurrence.
First approaches a sort of standard-bearer, with a
tall staff, or lance, pointed in steel, and with some-
thing not a unlike a fleur-de-lis as an emblem of
authority; these vary according to the rank. Then
a tall caparisoned riding-horse, led by two grooms
—and not a bad looking beast either; than asquad
of retainers, with the armorial bearings of their lord
embroidered on the sleeves ; and now comes the
great man himself, seated, or rather doubled up, in
his norimon, a palankeen curtailed of half its
length, so that instead of stretching your legs to
the end, you are fain to stuff your knees into your
mouth, or very near it. A Japanese tucks legs
and knees both under his person (whatever his
rank or dignity), or sits cross-legged, both of which
feats require, as I know to my cost, some practice
to render the fashion, however convenient, either
easy or pleasant. This cage-like box has a roof re-
minding one of a Swiss toy ,ballet, and under the
angle at the top a large and massive looking pole
is thrust for thd bearers, so that the sitter is sus-
pended below. The poles seem disproportionately
and unnecessarily massive and cumbersome; but
upon inquiry one is relieved of any uncomfortable
feeling about their weight; by
being told they are
for the most part hollow ; but it is considered more
consistent with dignity to have them of such
extreme dimensions. This is a matter of taste
and fashion. After the great man, who seems quite
as curious to see you as you could be to catch a
glimpse of him, come bearers of covers for his nori-
mon if it should main ; trunks with his wardrobe,
a large parasol if the sun is hot, more led horses, a
few attendants on horseback, and then a squad of
archers and followers. And so passed on his way
the Damio, meditating, perhaps (it might well be),
on the sudden and strange revolution in his coun-
try which has brought the foreigners once more to
the Japanese shores, and even into the streets and
thoroughfares of the capital.

JULY 28.

I add a few lines to tell you that, by a vessel
just arrived from Shanghai, news has reached us of
the untoward result of the attempt to clear the
way to Pekin for the English and French minis
tors charged with the ratification of the treaties.
This repulse, with great loss of ships and men on
our side, will doubtless have a bad effect here,
where difficulties enough existed already. Fortu•
nately the ratifications of our treaty had been for-
mally exchanged hire by our diplomatic agent
before this news arrived, or it might have been
worse, for the party in power show in a thousand
ways how little any treaty relations with foreign
powers are to their taste. Questions of currency
and choice of location at Kanagawa have hitherto
made all trade impossible ; and although before the
arrival of this news there were some signs of a dis-
position to give way on both these points under the
pressure of strong remonstrances from the British
and American representatives at Yeddo, it is im-
possible to be sanguine. It is quite certain that any
trade or residence of foreigners se near the capital
is very repugnant to those in power, and the whole