THE OTHER NEWLY-OPENED port of Hakodadi in the northern island of Yesso did not appear to me, in point of number of European residents or general interest, of sufficient importance to compensate for the delay and other inconveniences of a voyage in a sailing vessel thither and back of 1000 miles. The opportunities were also very few and uncertain. By omitting this part of my intended Japanese tour, I was providentially preserved in all probability from the melancholy and disastrous fate of H.M.S. Camilla which foundered with the loss of every person on board during a typhoon on her return voyage from Hakodadi to Kanagawa in the beginning of September 1860.

Hakodadi is of small importance as a place of trade and is valuable chiefly as the resort of whaling vessels and a depôt for coal of a bituminous quality which abounds in the neighbourhood. It contains only about thirty European residents. Its chief exports are the běche de mer or sea-slug, and various kinds of dried shell-fish. The extremes of cold are much greater than at Nagasaki and Kanagawa, where the tepid waters of a gulf-stream and their more southern latitude combine in causing the prevalence of mild winters and a moderate range of temperature.

I append an extract from the North China Herald of a year's meteorological observations for 1859. The neighbourhood of Hakodadi seems to have its full participation in the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions of the Japanese coast.

It was with mingled and conflicting feelings that I finally quitted the scenes of my pleasant wanderings in Japan, and the society of the kind friends beneath whose hospitable roof I found the comforts of a Christian home amid this pagan population. To all the missionaries, to several of the mercantile residents, and to the British and American Consuls during my ten weeks’ stay in Japan I was indebted for many acts of friendly kindness. My dear friends Mr. and Mrs. Brown at Kanagawa and Mr. Williams at Nagasaki claim a special prominence of grateful mention for all their many acts of considerate attention during the time of my residence with them. Embarking in a small American merchant-vessel bound to California, I finally sailed out of the Bay of Yeddo on June 17th and after a voyage of nearly 5000 miles across the North Pacific arrived in thirty-eight days.