of an injunction of the police, under orders from some higher quarterpossibly the Commissioners thought that, amongst other foreign fancies, it might enter the head of the English to carry off specimens of the pretty little pets in the tea-gardens, insisting upon our right to purchase them under the head of "unenumerated articles" in the new tariff. Anyhow, black teeth prevailed upon this occasion amongst the ladies, who in other respects were a charming addition to the scene of animation and pleasure. About three o'clock the barge of H.M.S."Furious," bearing the British Ambassador and suite, was seen leaving the shore, and at the same time a native boat with the Commissioners, in full costume, proceeded towards the yacht. The dress of these latter gentlemen was more than ordinarily handsome, especially that of the Lord High Admiral. Captain Barker, the senior naval officer, as the deputy of the naval Commander-in-Chief, received the Commissioners and the Earl of Elgin on board the yacht, and in a short speech expressed his sense of the honour conferred upon himself in being deputed to hand over to the Commissioners this token of goodwill and friendship: the Commissioners replied in equally warm terms, and then the English ensigns were hauled down from the "Emperor's" mastheads and ensign staff, and the Japanese colours were substituted. This act being formally carried out, the Japanese forts fronting the city saluted with a royal salute of twentyone guns; and uncommonly well they did it too. We returned it, and assuredly all will join in the prayer that the friendship thus saluted may be lasting between us, and beneficial to the good people of Japan. Not the least interesting part of this day's doings was the moving and working of the "Emperor" directly she became Japanese, under the management of a native captain, engineer, and crew. Her machinery was of the most recent construction, horizontal cylinders, trunk engines, and other peculiarities; yet they mastered all these, under the English officers, after a week's instruction; having, of course, previously understood an

ordinary old-fashioned engine. After passing round the squadron, she disembarked all her English visitors, and we had the pleasure of seeing the yacht proceed towards the city, to land the Imperial Commissioners.

At first the Japanese suggested that they should call the yacht the "London," out of compliment to our capital, which alone, they believed, could compare with their own; but for some reason or other, they eventually named her the "Dragon," and, as such, H.I.M.Y. "Dragon" will doubtless be of great use as a pleasure-boat to all but the imprisoned monarch for whom it was intended. A few weeks after our visit, when the ambassador of France, Baron Gros, made his appearance in the Bay of Yedo, he found the "Dragon" steaming about, and we heard that his excellency made more than one trip in her, under the safe charge of a Japanese captain and engineers.

It was late before all our farewells to our Yedo friends were over-their final act was to bring off some fiveand-twenty robes of honour as presents from the Emperor to Lord Elgin. They were wonderful articles, of the richest silk, stamped or dyed with the loudest patterns-sunflowers and pumpkins prevailing. In cut and shape the robes resembled dressing-gowns, though much larger, and they were quilted with raw silk to a thickness of at least four inches! The Councillors of State, seated round the Taikoon in such robes at an official levee, must be as gorgeous a

sight as a tulip - bed. As the officers deputed to present these dresses on board the "Furious" begged to be allowed to arrange the royal presents according to their custom, the quarter-deck soon presented an appearance which would have tried the nerves of the oldest and most experienced officer in the British navy, so much more did it resemble Swan and Edgar's than any place under a pendant.

Two hours before daybreak on the 27th August we weighed and proceeded to sea, not without a hope and prayer that in our wanderings we might yet one day revisit Yedo. Our stay there had been a bright oasis in the desert-like monotony of

our existence in China, and we hailed with joy, on behalf of our professional brethren employed in protecting commerce in the far East, the prospect of an occasional visit to the interesting and healthy islands of Japan. The Peak of Fusi-hama shone far above the ranges of mountains in the interior a short halfhour, and we bid the "peerless one" a long farewell.

Calm and majestic as Fusi-hama looks from the sea, the "matchless one" was born of volcanic action. If Japanese history tells true, the birth of the young lady--for she is a mere infant in age amongst mountainswas attended with a fearful convulsion of the whole island of Ni-pon, and in the self-same night, in the 285 B.C., that the great cone of Fusihama rose from the plain, not far from it was formed the great lake of Mitsu-as if the crust of the earth had sunk down in one spot, and bubbled up in another. Fusi-hama was an active volcano for many centuries. The last great eruption occurred on the 23d day of the 11th moon 1707, when, with two violent shocks of earthquake, the crest of the mountain opened, vomited flames, and hurled cinders for many leagues; and on the 25th and 26th, huge masses of rock and hot sand were projected over the adjoining country; and even in Yedo, fifty miles distant, ashes fell to a thickness of several inches.

Fusi-hama has, it is to be hoped, grown less dangerous as she has grown older, for we were told that no volcanic fire existed now in the crater. But hot springs are numerous, and earthquakes, alas! sadly destructive in the island of Ni-pon, and there seems reason to fear that the volcanic fires merely slumber, and are by no means extinct.

Our pleasant task draws to a close; we will not take our reader out into another gale of wind, in a paddlewheel frigate; one such trial ought to be quite enough for any one. It blew so hard, and the wind was so villanously fair, that we could not even muster the shadow of an excuse for not pushing ahead for China, and, mal gré, bon gré, were forced down the east coast of the Japanese group at the exciting rate of eleven miles an hour, leaving all the wonders of the Suwo-nada Sea, its labyrinth of islands and commerce-laden waters, for some future day. We grieved to think of leaving Hioga, the new port within Kino Straits, unvisited, as well as Ozaka and Miako, of which huge cities it is the seaport and outlet. We feel sure the reader will sympathise with us as, turning from Japan, we looked forward to the precious tossing about that was in store for us at sea, with unsavoury Shanghai at the end of our Voyage!

THE two ladies of Willan's Hope sate in the western window of the solar, as their apartment was called, enjoying the last gleams of the declining sun. On each side of the deep embrasure formed in the massive wall by the bold splay of the windowsides, contrived so as to throw as much light as possible within from a small external opening, there ran a low stone seat; and the space thus occupied being raised, as a kind of little dais, above the general level of the floor, it was the most cheerful position in what was, it must be confessed, but a dark and gloomy sittingroom, at that hour especially. Not that there was actually much to be seen from the window, after all; for its position had been chosen rather with a view to security than with any forethought as to the amusement of those who might look out of it; it commanded only the square court inside, never very lively, and at this moment duller than usual, for most of the household had just been summoned to their evening meal, and there was not a living being in sight. The effect produced by the shadow of the old keep upon the wall opposite might have been delicious perhaps to the eye of an artist, but to those who were now watching itnot being artists-it was simply depressing. Yet Dame Elfhild was an artist too a most enthusiastic and prolific one-after her manner. She wove webs like Penelope's in one particular, that they seemed neverending, though no one was suspected of unpicking them; but the suitors, alas! were among the things that had been. An artist, too, of most original design; for the birds and beasts and flowers which grew beneath her fingers had surely never prototypes unless in some lost geological formation; though they, or something very like them, seem to have been unanimously adopted as models by all fair embroideresses in subsequent generations.

The elder of the two occupants of the window-seat would have justified, in great measure, the old cellarer's description, making due allowance for figurative and argumentative language. The nose was certainly pointed; the complexion was not what it once had been. It seemed very probable that she had been a beauty in her day; there was still remaining a bright black eye, good teeth, and a striking cast of features, which, in the bloom of youth, had no doubt been sufficiently attractive. But five-and-thirty years had changed the brilliant brunette of her girlhood into the sharp-visaged elderly woman; and while clearer complexions, even with homelier features, might have retained much of their freshness and power of pleasing, the more stronglymarked lines which had once given Elfhild's face so much expression, had hardened-it might be the more so because she had never known the love of husband or child-into an expression of a very different kind. The bright glance was now rather uncomfortably piercing, and the sharp-cut features wanted softness and repose.

Gladice, who sate reclining with a sort of indolent grace opposite her kinswoman, was one of those figures to which a single failure in symmetry would have been fatal. Tall, and luxuriantly formed, her fair rivals, in the pride of their sylph-like slenderness, accused her perhaps, even as it was, of wanting delicacy. But there was an admirable proportion of outline, and a queen-like majestic ease in all her movements, which would have won most men's admiration, even if the large sweet eyes and open brow had not at once challenged their love. Picot had not overrated her; and could it avail to quote such humble admirers, every man and boy in and about the old tower was prepared to swear that their young mistress had not her match in the three counties, and to do battle in that quarrel as well as such churls

might. But then Gladice had always a bright smile and a kindly word for every one beneath her-man, woman, or child; a less common virtue then than now; it was only on noble knights and gentlemen that Gladice ever frowned. She had indeed seen but little of the knightly world, for it had been her guardian's policy to seclude her rather than otherwise, and what she had seen of it rather offended her taste than excited her imagination. She had lost her mother when little more than a child, and had since owed to Elfhild most of the comforts and protection of a home. For it must be said, in all charity, of the deceased Sir Amyas, that the company he had most loved to see at Willan's Hope, though excellent at mêlée or wassail, had very few other accomplishments to recommend them. In the rare and short visits paid to Ladysmede during Sir Godfrey's occupation, Gladice had scarcely found a change for the better in that respect; so that if her estimate of the ruder sex was not a very favourable one, it was hardly the fault of any over-romantic expectations so much as of circumstances. She had been present once or twice at the occasional jousts and festivals of the neighbourhood, but neither Sir Amyas nor Sir Godfrey stood high in their neighbours' estimation; and until her father's death made her an heiress, and, as such, a mark for all aspiring eyes, it seemed that Gladice's charms had not produced that sensation which her aunt's had done, if Stephen was to be credited, in days gone by; certain it was that neither glove nor token of hers had graced the helm of any knightly candidate who entered the lists for honour and lady's love.

But it was a dull enough life in the old tower, and Gladice found it so, though she would scarcely have confessed it. There was a great emptiness in her heart and mind. Elfhild, though kind to the motherless girl, was not a person to attract much love; and the young heiress had grown up in a dreamy sort of existence, with hazy longings for something indefinite and impossible; feeling an instinctive dissatisfaction with the realities which surrounded

VOL. LXXXV.-NO. DXXIII.

her, but quite at a loss to replace them by anything better even in her own imagination. She had not that other world of books to turn to, so fascinating, so satisfying, sometimes so dangerous, to young and ardent minds, not content with the material world they live in. Even if she had been able to obtain them, it is by no means certain that they would have presented any distinct meaning to those bright intelligent eyes. The very highest accomplishments (and reading was a very high one then) will rust for want of use; and if Gladice could read the motto that was painted over the wide fireplace in the old hall-a somewhat difficult task for a stranger, it was so begrimed with smoke-and follow out a well-known psalm in her breviary, memory had nearly as much share in it as early education. There had been a chaplain priest at Willan's Hope in Sir Amyas's time; but even the old knight himself was well aware that the less of his teaching found its way to his daughter's ears the better; and one of the first acts of authority which the young heiress had exercised, with the full approbation of her aunt and the consent of Sir Godfrey, had been to purify the household from the presence of the unworthy clerk, and one or two other disreputable inmates. Since then, such simple religious offices as were required had been performed there by one of the Benedictines of St Mary's, the good brother Ingulph, who came up from the monastery at stated times, and was always welcome-not the less so because he brought them news from the world without. He would carry with him also occasionally some rare manuscript volume from the monastic library, of which he had the charge; not the treatises in bad Latin and questionable theology, which formed the staple of their collection, and which would have been of little profit, in any sense, to his fair listeners, but Lives of the Saints in Norman-French, and even such more profane and secular entertainment as old Turold's Roman de Roncevaux

"De Karlemaigne et de Rollant E d'Oliver et des vassals Qy morurent en Roncevals;" which Gladice especially listened to

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