AFTER HIS RETURN to Edo, Mitford did not have to wait long to be on his travels again. Parkes never liked sitting in the Legation, especially when the summer heat made it unbearable. Rather he would spend ‘all day plotting and scheming to get up a sensation’, in the words of Dr Willis. Mitford told his father that ‘the expedition promises to be enjoyable’ – he enjoyed any kind of travelling, even if it was with Parkes – ‘but, oh!’, ‘the vomiting that I look forward to and the heat and the discomfort of being on board ship’.

The first part of their journey took them north to Hakodate on Ezo (now Hokkaido), a voyage of four days. It was Japan's wild frontier – almost unexplored by Westerners or the Japanese themselves beyond the southernmost part. Its climate was tough; it would have been pleasantly cool in the summer, but it had long, harsh winters. Ezo was the home of indigenous people called Ainu who had a distinct language and culture which would be systematically suppressed after Ezo became incorporated into Japan in 1869. Like nearly all Victorian travellers, Mitford saw aboriginal people as a curiosity and was keen to observe them, rather than interact with them as fellow human beings. Satow recorded that their women were

Parkes had no interest in the people and was, as ever, focused on the business in hand, in this case, how the coal mines there could be developed and a breakwater built to allow foreign ships to dock to load the coal.