17th, to-day we completed with coal and started for Yokohama,
leaving the Inland Sea by its south eastern entrance and entering on the
broad bosom of the great Pacific. By the help of a splendid breeze we
are speedily clear of the Linschoten strait and in view of a strange
picture, for giant Fusi begins to rear his hoary head above the main.

At first it appears but a small conical shaped island, rising isolated
from the midst of the sea, and which in a few hours we shall reach. But
a few hours multiply into scores of hours, and still that island appears
at a tantalizing distance, and it is not until the main land comes into
view that we discover the misty island is no island at all, but a superb
mountain. It can be seen at an immense distance from the sea; we,
ourselves, are, at the very least, sixty miles from its base, and yet
how clearly distinct, how tangibly present, how boldly out-lined it
stands against the opal tints of the evening sky.

Fusi-yama--"the peerless," "the matchless," or "the unrivalled,"--is an
extinct volcano, on the island of Niphon, though, only a century since,
it was in active operation, and is said to have been brought into
existence in the space of a few days. Few sights are likely to leave
such an impression on one's mind, as solitary, graceful, cold looking
Fusi, which, clothed in a mantle of snow, may, not inaptly, be compared
to a grim sentinel guarding the destinies of a nation. But who shall
attempt a description of its glories as we saw it that evening at
sunset, and many an evening afterward, with the chance and transient
effect of light and shade playing on its pearly sides.

June 19.--The freshening gale soon rattled us past the town of Simoda,
and into the great bay of Yedo, with the volcano of Vries at its
entrance. Hundreds of queer-shaped junks and smaller craft, laden with
the produce of the busy nation, glide across the rolling seas with
duck-like motions, on their peaceful mission to the capital.

I have before had occasion to mention these unintelligible pieces of
naval architecture, but as they never before appeared to me at such
advantage as now, as they struggle up the wind across our track, I have
hitherto refrained from saying much about them. They are constructed
very sharp forward and very broad aft, with high, rising sterns
something after the manner of the Chinese junk, but far more picturesque
and compact than the sister country's vessel; and, so far as looks g