of these men, the princes set
them to removing the sacks of rice to a convenient place on the shore
for shipping. Each of the sacks weighed not less than one hundred
twenty-five pounds, and there were only two of the wrestlers who did not
carry each two sacks at a time. They bore the sacks on the right
shoulder, lifting the first from the ground and adjusting it without
help, but obtaining aid for the raising of the second. One man carried a
sack suspended by his teeth, and another, taking one in his arms, turned
repeated somersaults as he held it, apparently with as much ease as if
his weight of flesh had been only so much gossamer and his load a
feather.

After this preliminary display, the commissioners proposed that the
Commodore and his party should retire to the treaty-house, where they
would have an opportunity of seeing the wrestlers exhibit their
professional feats. From the brutal performance of these wrestlers, the
Americans turned with pride to the exhibition--to which the Japanese
commissioners were now in their turn invited--of the telegraph and the
railroad. It was a happy contrast, which a higher civilization
presented, to the disgusting display on the part of the Japanese
officials. In place of the show of brute animal force there was a
triumphant revelation, to a partially enlightened people, of the success
of science and enterprise.

The Japanese took great delight in seeing the rapid movement of the
Liliputian locomotive; and one of the scribes of the commissioners took
his seat upon the car, while the engineer stood upon the tender, feeding
the furnace with one hand, and directing the diminutive engine with the
other. Crowds of the Japanese gathered round and looked on the repeated
circlings of the train with unabated pleasure and surprise, unable to
repress a shout of delight at each blast of the steam-whistle. The
telegraph, with its wonders, though before witnessed, still created
renewed interest, and all the beholders were unceasing in their
expressions of curiosity and astonishment. The agricultural instruments
having been explained to the commissioners by Doctor Morrow, a formal
delivery of the telegraph, the railway, and other articles, which made
up the list of American presents, ensued.

The Prince of Mamasaki had been delegated by his coadjutors
ceremoniously to accept, and Captain Adams was appointed by the
Commodore to deliver, the gifts; and each performed his functions by an
inter