nor, and two admirals. The princess was of course the
"lion"--excuse the gender--of the party. But how lost, how utterly
bewildered, she looked in reaching our quarter-deck! like little Alice
in wonderland. I hear it is the first time she has ever been afloat.
Her style of dress is different to anything we have yet seen in this
country. A red silk skirt clothed her lower limbs, whilst a transparent
gauzy purple tunic, figured with the imperial emblem, fell from her
shoulders to the ground. But her hair was what drew most of our
attention, for it was the most remarkable piece of head architecture
possible. How shall I describe it? Imagine a frying-pan inverted, its
inner rim resting on the crown of the head, and the handle depending
down the back, and you will have a correct, though a homely idea, of the
fashion of her hair. Each individual hair seemed as if picked out from
it fellows, stiffened by some process until it appeared like a wire bent
into shape; gathered in and tied a little below the nape of the neck,
and from thence downward traced into a queue. Hers was the ideal type of
Japanese feature, so rarely seen amongst the common people, and
considered so unlovely by Europeans. A long face, narrow straight nose,
almond eyes, very obliquely set in the head, and a mouth so tiny, so
thin the upper lip, that it looks more like a scarlet button than any
thing designed for kissing.

She was childishly pleased at everything she saw whilst accompanying the
admiral around the decks, twitching at his arm incessantly that she
might indulge her curiosity as to hatchways, stoke-hole gratings, and so
on; clapping her hands continually in the exuberance of her joy.

The "Modeste" accompanied us in our trip to the north on this occasion.

A few days out we called in at Kamaishi, in the neighbourhood of which
are the imperial copper mines and smelting works. The people here lack
the rosiness and freshness of face of the Japanese, and have a dowdy,
sickly look, due, I suppose, to the unhealthy exhalations from the
copper.

Instead of calling in at Hakodadi we continued on along the eastern
coast of Yezo until we reached Endermo harbour, sentinelled at its
entrance by a grim vomiting volcano which, in addition to its charred
and fire-scored crater, has innumerable other little outlets in its
sides, giving out jets of steam and sulphurous smoke until the very air
is loaded with the oppressive vapour.

At the anchorage we saw the