letters
along one broadside.

Our last mails, brought up by the "Zephyr," have narrowly escaped total
destruction--at least such might have been the fate of one of them; for
the steamer conveying it to Yokohama struck on a rock in the Inland
Seas, and foundered--the mails being immersed for so long a period that
when our letters reached us they were reduced to what Sala would call an
"epistolary pulp." But no news came of the "Audacious," only what the
poor mothers and wives say.

August 24th.--For the first time during our already long commission we
are about to make an acquaintance with the "hermit kingdom"--that, I
believe, is what one writer calls Corea. Japan has for a number of years
held a sort of _quasi_ intercourse with this country, and has even gone
so far as to send an embassy to the court at Seoul, and to establish two
or three settlements along the coast within the last two years. But the
Coreans, taking their cue from their suzerain, China, have ever looked
with a jealous eye on the Japanese and any other foreign relations.
However, China's Bismarck, the astute Li-hung-Chang, has recently
altered his tactics, and is now as anxious that Corea should enter into
the community of nations as he was before, that it should stand outside;
thus, when our admiral, at the beginning of the recent treaty, solicited
the prime minister's aid it was readily given; for, argued he, what
Corea, concedes to foreigners surely China has a right to demand.

Since we have been on this station two countries have attempted to
enter into treaty relations with Corea--the "Vittor Pinani," for Italy,
in 1880, and Commodore Shufeldt, for America, in the "Ticonderego," in
the same year; but both, I believe, have resulted in failure--the first
because, instead of the Italians calling China to their aid, they relied
too much on the mediations of Japan, a nation whom the Coreans mortally
detest: and the second because, though Li-hung-Chang was the medium,
Corea, whilst admitting her inferiority to China, claimed equality with
America, or with any other of the great civilized powers.

Of course no European nation is willing to concede so much; hence, for
the present, that treaty is annulled. It remains to be seen if ours is a
more honorable one or not.

At present Corea is in a state bordering on anarchy. Sundry rumours have
reached us recently of some disturbance south. So far as I am able to
glean, this is what is actually occurring.