nered hat with feathers, worn by the ambassador, his star, and the ribband of his order, with the different insignia about the uniforms of the officers; their sabres, sheir swords, and the scabbards; their buttons, scarfs, and keys of office as chamberlains, their watch-strings and seals. The celerity and address with which he sketched, almost at a glance, so many objects entirely new to him, was beyond the talents of most European artists; for they were done with Indian ink, on the fine Chinese silk-paper, as it is called; and what steadiness in the strokes, what lightness of pencil must be required, to give the proper expression in drawing with such materials! The time that we were detained here must have been of the greatest value to this man.

About twelve o'clock we were informed that the Norimons were all ready; the procession, therefore, immediately began to move forwards, precisely in the same order as the day before, with the exception of the officers being in these vehicles instead of going on foot. The place, the houses, the streets, were also all in like manner hung with tapestries and matting. Scarcely had we arrived at the governor's house before the ambassador was invited to the audience, whither he went, accompanied by Counsellor Fosse and Captain Foederoff. He soon returned to us, bringing in his hand a large roll of paper, which had been given him with great ceremony, and with a request that he would have it explained by the interpreters. These latter held up the roll to their foreheads, bowing their heads with profound respect, and then opening it with a sort of awe, said: "This is an extraordinary instance of favour shewn by the Emperor of Japan to the Russian ambassador: the paper contains nothing but friendship; but since it is written in the Japanese language, we are commissioned to explain, orally, the principal articles of its con

tents. In the sequel all will be faithfully translated, and committed to writing, that it may be understood with the utmost accuracy. This will be no trifling or easy task; for the paper is full of deep thought, and written with much attention and profound learning."

They then proceeded to make known to us the principal articles, which were as follows. "In former times, ships of all nations were allowed to come freely to Japan, and the Japanese were in the habit of visiting foreign countries with equal freedom. A hundred and fifty years ago, however, an emperor had strictly enjoined his successors never to let the Japanese quit the country, and only to permit the Chinese, the Dutch, and the inhabitants of the Island Riukiu, with the Coreans, to come to Japan. For many years the trade with the latter had been broken off, and only that with the Chinese and Dutch had been kept up. Since that epoch several foreign nations had, at various times, endeavoured to establish an intercourse of friendship and commerce with Japan; they were always, however, repulsed, in consequence of the long-established prohibition, and because it was held dangerous to form ties of friendship with an unknown foreign power, which could not be founded on any basis of equality.”

The interpreters here made a pause, and then proceeded. "Friendship," they said, " is like a chain, which, when destined to some particular end, must consist of a determined number of links. If one member, however, be particularly strong, and the others disproportionally weak, the latter must of necessity, by use, be soon broken. The chain of friendship can never, therefore, be otherwise than disadvantageous to the weak members included in it.

"Thirteen years before," they continued, "a Russian ship, with Lieutenant Laxmann, came to Japan,

and

and a second was now arrived with an ambassador from the great Russian Emperor. That the one should be received with forbearance, and the other with friendship, could be permitted, and the Emperor of Japan would gladly do whatever was in his power, consistently with adhering to the laws; he could and would, therefore, consider the arrival of the second Russian -ship as a proof of the great friendship borne him by the Emperor of Russia. "This powerful monarch had sent him an ambassador with a number of costly presents. If they were accepted, the Emperor of Japan must, according to the customs of the country, which are considered as laws, send an ambassador with presents of equal value to the Emperor of Russia. But as there is a strict prohibition against either the inhabitants or the ships quitting the country, and Japan is besides so poor, that it is impossible to return presents to any thing like an equivalent, it is wholly out of the emperor's power to receive either the ambassador or the presents.

"Japan has no great wants, and has therefore little occasion for foreign productions: her few real wants, as well as those that she has contracted by custom, are richly supplied by the Dutch and Chinese, and luxuries are things she does not wish to see introduced. It would, besides, be very difficult to establish an extensive trade, since that must, almost of necessity, occasion frequent intercourse between the common people and the foreign sailors; and this is a thing strictly prohibited."

The ambassador now made many protestations that he did not come with any idea of receiving presents in return for what he had brought; and added, that if the Emperor would not accept any presents, he must insist upon paying for the provisions, and materials for repairing the ship, with which we had been furnished. To this the Japanese answered, that these Jan. 1814.

were not presents: the provisions were necessary for the support of life, and the other was only assistance imparted in a case of need: to give both freely was a duty of the government. At the same time they informed us, that the emperor had issued a particular order to supply the ship with provisions for two months of every sort that we deemed expedient or desired. He had ordered besides two thousand sacks of salt of 30 pounds each, and a hundred sacks of rice of a hundred and fifty pounds each, with two thousand bundles of the finest Japanese raw silk, to be given us; the two former were for the crew, the latter for the officers. These the ambassador refused, saying, that if the emperor declined accepting his presents, he could not possibly accept the articles offered.

While these discussions were going on, pipes had been brought us, and tea without sugar, with some sugared things as refreshments. The latter were upon separate sheets of paper for each person, and consisted of a variety of articles bound together with a sugar-work, which had all the appearance of a very pretty stripped ribband.

After the interpreters had explained the emperor's pleasure, they brought a small roll of paper, which was addressed by the governor to the ambassador. Its principal contents were, to recommend that our ship, immediately on leaving the harbour, should stand out to sea to a considerable distance, as the coast, upon account of the rocks and frequent storms, was extremely dangerous; and to request, that if in future any Japanese should be thrown upon the Russian coasts, they might be consigned to the Dutch, who would transport them to Batavia, whence they might easily return to Japan.

Our audience being now at an end, about four in the afternoon we were carried back in the Norimons to Ochatto, but without any train, and

thence

thence proceeded by water to Megasaki. The whole day was very cloudy, with some heavy showers of rain, which only contributed to increase the gloom in our minds created by our disappointment. As it was doubtful whether our audience might not be protracted to a late hour in the evening, preparations had been made for illuminating all the streets through which we were to pass: at every four or five paces a post of about two feet high was stuck into the ground, to which was fastened a paper lantern.

On the sixth, the interpreters came to talk once more with the ambassador, in the name of the governor, about the provisions and the silk. They assured us that the governor could not do any thing in the affair from his own judgment; he must obey the Emperor's orders; and if the ambassador persisted in refusing the things offered, he must send a courier to Jedo to signify as much, which would prolong our stay at least two months. In order, there fore, to obtain our liberty, his excellency was obliged to accept the silk and provisions. The interpreters then asked whether it would be agreeable to him to have his audience for taking leave the next day, or whether he would defer it for some days. The ambassador chose the first, that he might quit Japan as soon as possible.

Towards noon, therefore, on the seventh of April, we passed again through the streets of Nangasaki; they were ornamented as before with hangings, and beset with guards. As it rained very hard, we were each provided with a new umbrella when we arrived at Ochatta, and were carried in our Norimons.

The audience consisted in a reciprocal exchange of compliments and friendly adieus. We were then conducted into an adjoining apartment, where were the two thousand bundles of silk sent by the emperor. The interpreters assured us that it would have been an extraordinary piece of

ill-fortune to them if the ambassador had not permitted the officers to accept this present, since they would have been supposed to have ill-interpreted the emperor's orders, and this is a very heavy crime; they were therefore eloquent in their acknowledgements for the ambassador's condescension.

Natural History of ESCULENT FISHES.

THAT the mine we have to work

upon is in reality inexhaustible, a transient inspection will be sufficient to satisfy the most sceptical inquirer. We now know that travellers do not exaggerate, when they tell us of swarms of locusts obscuring the light of the sun; of flights of white ants filling the whole horizon like a snow shower; of herds and antelopes scouring the plains in thousands; neither are fishermen disbelieved 'when they speak of shoals of herrings, occupying, in close array, many millions of acres near the surface of the sea; nor when they tell us that, on the coast of Norway, in passing through the narrow inlets, they move in such deep columns, that they are known by the name of the herring mountains. The cod, hake, ling, mackerel, pilchard, and salmon, though not quite so numerous as the herring, are all of them gregarious, and probably migrating animals.

In thus ordaining that the most numerous of the finny tribe should be those which afford the most wholesome food for man, we acknowledge the benevolent intentions of an all-wise and good Providence.

We are yet imperfectly acquainted with the natural history of the herring. Its winter habitation has generally been supposed within the arctic circle, under the vast fields of ice which float on the northern ocean, where it fattens on the swarms of shrimps and other marine insects which are said to be most abundant in those seas. On the return of the sun from the south

ern

ern tropic towards the equator, the multitudinous host issues forth in numbers that exceed the power of imagination. Separating about Iceland into two grand divisions, the one proceeds to the westward, filling, in its progress, every bay and creek on the coast of America, from the Straits of Bellisle to Cape Hatteras: the other, proceeding easterly in a number of distinct columns, of five or six miles in length, and three or four in breadth, till they reach the Shetland islands, which they generally do about the end of April, is there subdivided into a number of smaller columns, some of which taking the eastern coast of Great Britain, fill every creek and inlet in succession, from the Orkneys down to the British Channel; and others, branching off to the westward, surround the coasts of the Hebrides, and penetrate into the numerous firths and lochs on the western shores of Scotland. Another ahoal, pursuing the route to Ireland, separates on the north of that island into two divisions, one of which, passing down the Irish Channel, surrounds the Isle of Man, the other pours its vast multitudes into the bays and inlets of the western coast of Ireland. The whole of this grand army, which the word herring emphatically expresses, disappears, on the arrival of the several divisions on the southern coasts of England and Ireland, about the end of October, to which period, from its first appearance in April, it invites the attack of a variety of enemies, besides the fishermen, in every point of its route. In their own element, the herrings furnish food for the whale, the shark, the grampus, the cod, and almost all the larger kind of fishes; and they are followed in the air by flocks of gulls, gannets, and other marine birds, which continually hover about them, and announce their approach to the expectant fisherman. To keep up this abundant supply, and to provide against all the drains

which were intended to be made upon it, nature has bestowed on the herring a corresponding fecundity, the spawn of each female comprehending from thirty to forty thousand eggs. Whether these eggs are deposited in the soft and oozy banks of the deep sea, abounding with marine werms and insects, and affording food for winter's consumption; or whether they lie within the arctic circle amidst unremitting frost and six months perpetual darkness, is yet a doubtful point; but the former will probably be considered as the less objectionable conjecture.

The esculent fish, next of importance to the herring in a national point of view, is the cod-fish, which is also considered among the number of those which migrate from the north, in a southerly direction, to nearly the same degree of latitude as the herring. But there is reason to believe that its constant residence is on the rough and stony banks of the deep sea, and that it is rarely found beyond the arctic circle, and there only sparingly, and in the summer months. On the great bank of Newfoundland, on the coasts of Iceland, Norway, Shetland, and the Orkney islands, on the Well-bank, the Dogger-bank, the Broad Forties, on the northern, western, and southern coasts of Ireland, the cod is most abundant and of the best quality : 'in some or other of these situations the fisheries may be carried on with certain success, and to great advantage, fron November to Midsummer. On the western coasts of Scotland and Ireland all the different species of the cod genus, usually known under the name of white fish, are plentifully dispersed. Every bank is, in fact, an inexhaustible fishery, for, with fewer enemies than the herring to prey upon it, the cod is at least a hundred times more productive. The fecundity of this fish, indeed, so far exceeds credibility, that, had it not been

ascer

ascertained by actual experiment, and on the best possible authority, it would have been considered as fa. bulous to assign to the female cod, from three to four millions of eggs*.

Not only the hake, sometimes known by the name of poor John,' but more commonly by that of stockfish, and the ling, are to be reckoned among the valuable products of the British fisheries, especially as articles of foreign consumption, but we may also include the haddock, which is another species of cod, equally important for the supply of the home market. Haddocks assemble in vast shoals during the winter months in every part of the northern ocean, and bend their course generally to the southward, proceeding beyond the limits of the cod and the herring; but it is remarked that they neither enter the Baltic nor the Mediterranean. The two dark spots a little behind its head, are supposed to have gained the haddock, in days of superstition, the credit of being the fish which St Peter caught with the tribute money in its mouth, in proof of which the impression of the Saint's finger and thumb has been entailed on the whole race of haddocks ever since. Unfortunately, however, for the tradition, the haddock is not a Mediterranean fish, nor can we suppose it to have belonged to the lake of Tiberias. The truth is, the Italians consider a very different fish as that which was sanctified by the Apostle, and which after him they honour with the name of janitore, a name that we have converted into Johnny Dory with the same happy ingenuity that has twisted the girasole or turnsol into a Jerusalem artichoke.

Several other kinds of white fish, as turbot, plaice, sole, and whitings, are plentifully dispersed over various parts of the British seas, so as to afford au

*Philosophical Transactions, vol. 57, p. 280.

ample supply for the home market,the whole year round, without the smallest danger of that supply being exhausted or diminished.

The mackerel fishery in the English Channel continues about four months in the year, commencing in April or May. This too is a fish of passage, but, contrary to the course of the herring, is supposed to visit the British seas in large shoals from the southward. The mackerel is chiefly caught for immediate consumption, but is sometimes pickled for winter use. Its fecundity is very great, each female depositing, at least, half a million of eggs.

The pilchard, like the herring, of which it is a species, is a fish of passage. It makes its appearance, in vast shoals, on the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall, and in the neighbourhood of the Scilly Islands, from July to September. About the time that the pilchards are expected on the coast, a number of men, called huers, post themselves on the heights to look out for their approach, which is indicated by a change in the colour of the water. The boats, in the mean while, with their nets prepared, are held in momentary readiness to push forth in the direction pointed out to them by the huers. On the coast of Cornwall alone, fifty or sixty thousand hogsheads of this fish are annually salted for foreign consumption.

But of all others the salmon may, perhaps, be considered as the king of fishes; and no part of Europe is more bountifully supplied with it than the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. At certain seasons of the year, whole shoals of this noble fish approach to the mouths of rivers, which they ascend to considerable distances, surmounting every obstacle in order to find a safe and convenient spot to deposit their spawn. From January to September they are in high season, but in some part or other of the coast

are