FOR OVER TWO hundred years Japan had resolutely remained a Hermit Kingdom, until in 1853 and 1854 Commodore Matthew Perry, in command of American warships, entered Yedo (Tokyo) Bay and secured the Shogun's agreement to open two ports to American ships and permit the presence of Consuls. These ports were Shimoda, on Idzu Peninsula, and Hakodate in the Northern Island of Yezo, a much needed refuge for whalers.

In 1855, Congress appointed Townsend Harris Consul-General at Shimoda and Col. Elisha E. Rice, of Augusta, Maine, Consul at Hakodate. Col. Rice arrived at his post in 1856 and held it for twenty years. It so happens that his great granddaughter is the present writer's wife.

On reaching Shimoda in 1856, Consul-General Harris, later American Minister in Yedo, renewed negotiations with the Shogun resulting in another Treaty in 1858 opening three more ports—Kanagawa in Tokyo Bay, Hyogo (Kobe), and Nagasaki in the Southern Island of Kyushu. Other nations speedily concluded similar Treaties and in 1859-60 foreign merchants hastened to establish themselves in this virgin field.

Yedo, the Shogun's capital at the head of the Bay, presented the richest prospect, but since its waters were too shallow for large vessels, Kanagawa, a populous village sixteen miles down the Bay on the Western shore, had been designated its treaty port. Though possessing excellent inns befitting an important staging post on the Tokaido—the ancient highway between Yedo and the Mikado's hereditary capital Kyoto—Kanagawa offered little scope for development, being hedged in between coastal hills and a great marsh extending two miles down the bay to the next headland. This marsh merged into paddy-fields reaching to the inner hills, a jutting shoulder of which, called Nogeyama, almost cut the marsh in two. The half below Nogeyama was contained on the seaward side by a long shingly beach backed by solid ground increasing in depth towards the headland. This strand, known as ‘Yoko-hama’ or ‘cross-beach’, had been converted to a virtual island by a creek alongside the headland connecting the Bay with the inner lagoons.

When Commodore Perry anchored off Kanagawa in 1854, he discovered deep water close to Yokohama beach, and, wishing to keep within protective range of his guns, elected to conduct treaty negotiations at an inviting spot half-way along this strand.