an, where vaccination had not yet been
introduced; and to an unaccustomed eye it was startling to note in the
streets the number of pitted faces, a visible demonstration of what a
European city must have presented before inoculation was practised.
One of our crew had died; and when we started, February 25th, we had
on board some sick. These were carefully isolated under the airy
topgallant forecastle, and with a good passage the contagion might not
have spread; but the second day out the weather came on bad and very
thick, ending with a gale so violent that to save the lives of the
patients they had to be taken below, and then, for the safety of the
ship, which was single-decked, the hatches had to be battened down.
Conditions more favorable for the spread of the malady could not have
been devised, and the result was that we were not fairly clear of the
epidemic for nearly two months, though the cases, of which we had
fifteen or twenty, were sent ashore as fast as they developed. At that
period few ships on the station wholly escaped this scourge.

It was after we left Kobe that judicial satisfaction was given for the
attack upon the foreign concession. My account depends upon the
reports which reached us; but as the captain of the _Oneida_ was one
of the official witnesses, on the part of the international interests
concerned, I presume that what we heard was nearly correct. The final
scene was in a temple near Hiogo. Being of the class of nobles, the
condemned had a privilege of the peerage, which insured for him the
honorable death of the harakiri;[12] a distinction apparently
analogous to that which our soldiers of European tradition draw
between hanging and shooting. Having duly performed acts of devotion
suited to the place and to the occasion, he spoke, justifying his
action, and saying that, under similar circumstances, he would again
do the same. He then partly disrobed, assisted by friends, and when
all was ready stabbed himself; a comrade who had stood by with drawn
sword at the same instant cutting off his head with a single blow. I
was tempted by curiosity, once while on the station, to attend the
execution of some ordinary criminals; and I can testify to the
deftness and instantaneousness with which one head fell, in the flash
of a sword or the twinkling of an eye. I did not care to view the
fates of the three others condemned, but it was clear that no judicial
death could be more speedy and merciful.

N