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In the battle of Hakodate the rebel fleet was totally destroyed, and the various clans in the country who possessed war-vessels of one kind or other presented them to the central Government.
To-day, things, men, and cities were different, and the story of the line mixed itself up with the story of the country, the while the car-wheels clicked out, 'John Kino John Kino! Nagasaki, Yokohama, Hakodate, Heh! for we were following in the wake of the Imperial Limited, all full of Hongkong and Treaty Ports men.
To this the commodore would not accede, nor would he consent to be bound by the restrictions placed on the Dutch and Chinese. He demanded three harbors, one each in Hondo, Yezo, and the Loochoo Islands, but finally agreed to accept two, the port of Simoda in Hondo and that of Hakodate in Yezo.
They surely would not afterward knowingly insert it in any treaty they might make with us. The only permanent residence to which they gave assent, and that most reluctantly, was the residence of a consul. Temporary residence was allowed to our shipwrecked citizens, as well as to those who went to Simoda or Hakodate on commercial business.
A week later he was put ashore at Hakodate, and after some telegraphing, his fare was paid on the railroad to Yokohama. From the depot he hurried through the quaint Japanese streets to the harbor, and hired a sampan boatman to put him aboard a certain vessel whose familiar rigging had quickly caught his eye. Her gaskets were off, her sails unfurled; she was just starting back to the United States.
The distance, also, to which Americans might extend their excursions into the country around the ports of Simoda and Hakodate was settled; and it is observable that, at the special request of the Japanese, the Commodore named the distance, they assenting at once to that which he mentioned. The proposition to have consular agents residing in Japan evidently gave great anxiety to the commissioners.
Here they were received by a greater crowd than before, Matsumai being a more important town than Hakodate. Their prison was similar to the preceding one, but their food was much better, and after a time they were released from their cage-like cells and permitted to dwell together in a large room.
We had quite the same experience returning to Shanghai; but at that time in mid-sea, where the Iroquois, powerless as to steam, but otherwise as much at home as the sea-fowl, rode it out gleefully, though I admit not luxuriously to flesh and muscles. On November 1st we reached Hakodate, where our captain and consul, aided by the Japanese authorities, proceeded at once with their investigation.
Meanwhile the Russians had become, through their Siberian ports, near neighbors of Japan, and sought to open trade with that country. In 1793 Lieutenant Laxman landed at Hakodate and travelled overland to Matsumai, bringing with him some shipwrecked Japanese and seeking for commercial relations with Japan.
It is in the air the wobble and the legless drift An energetic tourist would have gone to Hakodate, seen Ainos at Sapporo, ridden across the northern island under the gigantic thistles, caught salmon, looked in at Vladivostock, and done half a hundred things in the time that one lazy loafer has wasted watching the barley turn from green to gold, the azaleas blossom and burn out, and the spring give way to the warm rains of summer.
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