ath the surface. It was during this
period that the British minister, visiting Kioto, a concession
jealously resisted by conservative Japanese spirit, was set upon by
some ronins while on his way to pay an official call. He was guarded
by British cavalry and marines, and had besides an escort of samurai.
It was said at the time that these fled, except the officers, who
fought valiantly, slaying one and beating down the other of the two
most desperate assailants. Considering the well-established courage of
the Japanese, and that the attack was by their own people, sympathy
with the attempt seems the most likely explanation of the
faithlessness reported. The immediate effect of this was to curtail
our privileges of riding about the country of Yokohama.

Perhaps the most notable incident, historically, of our stay in
Yokohama was the arrival of the first iron-clad of the Japanese navy,
to which it has fallen a generation later to give the most forcible
lesson yet seen of iron-clads in battle. This vessel had been the
Confederate ram _Stonewall_, and prior to her acquisition by Japan had
had a curiously checkered career of ownership. She was built in
Bordeaux, under the name _Sphinx_, by contract between a French firm
and the Confederate naval agent in Europe; but some difficulty arose
between the parties, and in 1864 Denmark, being then at war with
Austria and Prussia concerning the Schleswig-Holstein duchies, bought
her under certain conditions. With a view to delivery to the Danish
government she was taken to a Swedish port, and after a nominal sale
proceeded under the Swedish flag to Copenhagen, where she remained in
charge of a banker of that city. Peace having been meanwhile declared,
Denmark no longer wanted her. The sale was nullified under pretext of
failure in the conditions, and she passed finally into the hands of
the Confederacy,[13] sailing from Copenhagen January 7, 1865. Off
Quiberon, in France, she received a crew from another vessel under
Confederate direction, and thence attempted to go to the Azores, but
was forced by bad weather into Ferrol. From there she crossed the
Atlantic; but by the time of her arrival the War of Secession was
ended by the surrenders of Lee and Johnston. Her commander took her to
Havana, and there gave her up to the Spanish authorities. Spain, in
turn, in due time delivered her to the United States, as the legal
heir to all spoils of the Confederacy. Several years later, in 1871,