BLACKSMITH'S BELLOWS.

sheathing and bolting their vessels, and for the manufacture of various cooking and other household utensils. Iron is less frequently employed, and with great economy. It is seldom that their implements are entirely composed of

and pleasure. Hakodadi, though evidently | als copper is much used, and, as with us, for carrying on a large trade-for the harbor, with its numerous junks and fishing-boats, presented a stirring scene-showed no outward marks of activity in the streets. There are no public market-places, and all business is carried on silently within the stores and shops. It is true, long trains of pack-horses, loaded down with goods, occasionally trot through the streets, but there are no wheeled carriages or carts to disturb the general silence. The kago, which is a square box, to the contracted capacity of which the suppleness of a Japanese back or knee can alone accommodate itself, is the only kind of carriage used. This is carried by means of a couple of poles, like those of a sedan-chair, borne by two men, and is the most uncomfortable kind of conveyance conceivable. The kago is occasionally made very ornamental when belonging to the wealthier and higher classes. The greater dignitaries generally travel on horseback, and their animals are often adorned with rich trappings. The Japanese horse is of small breed, but of a compact form, with delicate tendinous limbs, and is active, spirited, and of good bottom.

In a large town like Hakodadi, there are, of course, many engaged in the mechanical arts. The building of junks is carried on extensively in yards bordering the harbor. These vessels are seldom more than a hundred tons in burden, and are constructed very much like the Chinese junks. Canvas is, however, used instead of the bamboo as in China, for the sails. The Japanese are timid navigators, and never lose sight of the land, if possible, in their various voyages. Although, from the insular character of their country, they are naturally a maritime people, the government-so resolute is its isolated policy-has forbidden, for hundreds of years, all direct communication with foreign countries under the penalty of death. The construction of the junks is regulated by law as to size and form, so that, with their small tonage and open sterns, they are unfit to encounter the storms of the sea, and the people are fearful of venturing, in their ill-constructed vessels, beyond the limits prescribed by the govern

ment.

The Japanese are familiar with the working of the metals. Their jewelers and silversmiths are expert workmen, and the specimens of their manufacture are often tasteful in design and of excellent workmanship. Of the coarser met

PRAYING MACHINE

The prevailing religions of the Japanese are Buddhism and Sintooism. The former, however, is the favorite form of worship, and all its ceremonies are carefully observed. Sculptured statues of Buddha abound every where, in the temples, in the roadside chapels, and in the shrines, which hang upon the acclivities of the

this metal, it being usual to make them of wood, | ticed in Japan. Their paper is made of the and merely tip them with iron. The black- bark of the mulberry and of other woods, and smiths work, as with us, with a charcoal fire presents a good surface for the reception of the and a bellows. The latter, however, is pecu- type, but is of so thin a texture that the printliarly made, being a box with a piston working ing is confined to one side only. The leaf of horizontally, and two holes at the side for the each book is accordingly double, with two blank issue of the blast. Coopering is an important surfaces inclosed within. A general system of trade at Hakodadi, where immense quantities public instruction extends its influence throughof fish are salted and packed for exportation in out the empire, and the commonest people can barrels. These are made of staves, and hooped read and write. as with us, but their form is peculiar, being somewhat conical in shape. The neatness of finish of the wood-work of the houses, proves the carpenters skillful workmen, and the cabinetware often inlaid, richly adorned, and covered with the exquisite lacquer polish, is unsurpassed by the finest marqueterie of Paris. Weaving and the manufacture of coarse cotton cloth-hills, or lie hid away among the pine groves. ing are carried on in almost all the houses by The devotion of worshipers is shown in the bits the women, who use looms constructed very of paper, the copper cash, the bouquet of flowers, much like those familiar to our own people. In and in the long queues of hair which are found the higher arts the Japanese deserve a rank much offered up in great abundance. The Japanese beyond any Oriental nation. The carvings in have reached that perfection of religious formwood with which many of the better houses alism-machine praying. At Hakodadi cerand most of the temples are adorned, show an tain posts were observed conveniently placed for exact knowledge of form, particularly of that the use of the pious passer-by. These were inof familiar objects of nature, such as birds, scribed with prayers, and at a convenient disfish, and flowers, and a skill of hand in the cut-tance from the ground were attached wheels, ting almost perfect. In the Japanese paintings and drawings there is the freedom that belongs to great manual dexterity, and a correctness of outline which proves a close observation of nature. Some specimens of the illustrated books brought to this country by the Commodore, establish the fact hitherto denied, that the Japanese, unlike the Chinese, are familiar with the principles of perspective. These works also show, in their drawings of the human figure and The higher classes of the Japanese are supof the horse, a well-directed study of the anat-posed to be imbued with a wide philosophical omy of form in its external developments.

The Japanese are great readers, and popular romances issue from their presses with the frequency of cheap novels with us. Their books are printed by means of wooden blocks, and it is said that they have separate type of the same material, while printing in colors, which is an art just beginning with us, but has been long prac

which worked on axles, passing through the posts. For each turn of the wheel the devotee is supposed to obtain credit in heaven for one of the inscribed prayers, and such is the facility acquired by some whose religious education has not been neglected, and whose pious diligence has been exemplary, that they succeed in spining off the whole liturgy of the post in a single whirl.

skepticism, and to regard the religion of their country merely as a state institution. They are tolerant of all forms of worship but that of the Christian, which, since the interference of the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, two hundred and fifty years ago, with the policy of the government, has been strictly excluded from Japan. The Americans, however, regularly per

formed the Christian worship on board their | fast as the upper surface is worn off, they are ships, while floating within Japanese waters, and several of the sailors who died were buried in Japan with the usual ceremonies of our religion. The authorities, in fact, appropriated, both at Simoda and Hakodadi, places of interment for the American Christians.

pushed forward from below, and thus kept continually upon a cutting edge and in their true position. If, however, an accident happens to these teeth, and those on either jaw have no corresponding ones to grind upon, and thus keep them at a proper length, they rapidly assume the form of tusks, and, if coming from the lower jaw, will curl upward over the lips, and finally produce such a deformity as to cause the animal's death.

The Commodore awaited more than two weeks the arrival of the expected representative of the Japanese Commissioners, who was to meet him at Hakodadi. After frequent conferences with the local authorities and the agent The rat and the mouse, so familiar as houseof the Prince of Matsmai, the Commodore, hold nuisances, are the most destructive, so far finding that no final arrangements could be as man's interests are concerned, of all the made in regard to the limits and other details gnawing animals, and therefore occupy so large regulating the opening of Hakodadi to Ameri- a space in the history of civilized society, and can intercourse, found it necessary to defer all so well deserve a chapter by themselves, that further consideration of the subject until his re- their eventful history will be reserved for a futurn to Simoda. Just, however, as the squad-ture occasion, while we proceed for the present ron was about to sail, a Japanese functionary to treat of other less known members of the arrived from the court at Yedo, but as he did family.

not seem to be fully authorized to act, his visit was received and considered as one purely of ceremony. On the 3d of June the Commodore sailed for Simoda, where he arrived on the seventh. The Commissioners were found there in readiness for negotiation, which was entered upon at once, and resulted, after a good deal of tedious diplomacy, in the agreement of certain regulations subsidiary to the treaty. These had reference particularly to the boundaries within which the Americans were to be confined in their visits to Hakodadi and Simoda, and to certain pilot and port arrangements essential to the navigator.

On the 28th of June, 1854, the Commodore took his final departure from Japan in the steamer Mississippi, accompanied by the Powhatan, and directed his course homeward, by the way of Loo-Choo and China. The sailing ships were dispatched to various places of destination in the East. On the arrival of the steamers at Hong-Kong, Commodore Perry took passage in the English steam-packet for India, thence by the Red Sea to Europe, and thus to the United States.

THE GNAWERS.

SPECIMENS of the rodentia, or gnawing

animals, are familiar to every one in the destructive rat, the playful squirrel, and the harmless rabbit. The order is remarkable for intelligence, and has furnished our households with their greatest pests, as well as their most favored pets.

The peculiarity of the rodentia consists in having on each jaw two long, flat, and slightly curved teeth, which ingeniously work upon each other in such a way that they are kept sharp like chisels, and are used for cutting the bark and wood of trees, the hard shells of the different kinds of nuts, and, in some instances, the softer metals, such as tin and zinc. The constant labor which these teeth perform would rapidly wear them away if they were not constantly replenished from the roots, so that as

THE CAPYBÁRA.

The capybára, a native of South America, is the largest of the rodentia, and from its size and coarse hair might, upon superficial examination, be mistaken for a half-grown pig. It is a solitary, harmless being, living upon grass, veg. etables, and fruits, and is rarely seen in the daytime even amidst its most favorite haunts. If alarmed, it retreats to the water for protec tion. The inhabitants of the country where it is found esteem the animal a great luxury, and the jaguar pursues it with never-tiring industry. The guinea-pig, also a native of South America, and always so great a pet among children, is a miniature specimen of the capybára.

The dwelling of the hamster, says an imaginative writer, is the perfect image of the social household and the cordial understanding of civilized married couples. The male and female at first get along harmoniously in pillaging the public in general, discord, as in civilization, only coming at the moment of dividing the spoils. The male, delighted to use the labor of his wife in filling the storehouse, the moment winter sets in, attempts to drive her from the conjugal abode. Obliged to run before superior strength, she appears to leave forever, but digs a sideway, and thus enjoys the treasure. So far the practice is too true of many latitudes, but the fanciful theorist locates his ideas and himself in France, when he adds, "The female does more, she obtains the assistthe size of the common rat. It resembles in ance of a comrade, and the two, profiting by form the kangaroo of Australia, and like that the torpor of the gorged husband inside, strananimal, is remarkable for leaping, or rather fly-gle and eat him, and thus set up housekeeping ing over the plain, for so rapid are its move-over his remains." The Archbishop of Mayments that the swiftest greyhound is unable to ence, so says an old German legend, bought up overtake it.

THE JERBOA.

THE CHINCHILLA.

The chinchilla is an inhabitant of cold countries, and is covered with the long, soft fur called after its name, and once so much esteemed as an article of dress. In its form we have the common characteristics of the squirrel and rabbit.

THE HAMSTER.

The hamster is native to the Valley of the Rhine, and burrows in the ground the same as a rabbit. It not only devours immense quantities of corn in summer, but by the aid of two pouches, one on each side of the jaw, manages to lay up incredible stores for winter use, its rich magazine of provisions being sometimes seven feet deep. It is a brave little animal, and will attack any thing, man or beast, that comes near its property. Rats, mice, lizards, birds, and even the helpless of its own kind, fall before its ravenous appetite. Its skin is of some value, but the hunter often finds its depository of food the greatest consideration, for in a single one has been found provision sufficient to last a peasant's family a month or more.

all the corn of the surrounding country, and stored it in his castle, situated upon one of the many beautiful islands in the Rhine. The famine he thus occasioned extended not only to the human inhabitants, but reached the greedy hamsters. Scenting the treasure of the wicked bishop afar off, they joined together in great multitudes, swam across to his palace, and in one night devoured him from off the face of the earth.

The porcupine, widely scattered over the world, unlike the rest of its family, is remarkably slow in its movements, and never attempts to get out of the way of an enemy: nature, however, has protected it from attack by covering its body with an impenetrable coat of mail, bristling with bayonets; but for this, its helplessness would soon cause it to be exterminated by the lynx and the cat. This harmless animal has been the subject of much fabulous exaggeration. It can not project its quills from its sides, as arrows from a bow, as some historians have gravely asserted; and, in spite of Shakspeare's insinuation to the contrary, it is not fretful in its disposition, for if left to its solitary haunts, no animal of the forests is more happy in the enjoyment of its humble life. Its quills vary from six to fourteen inches in length, and are much esteemed, both by savage and civilized people, for various useful purposes to which they can be applied. The Indians, particularly of Canada, by arts peculiar to themselves, dye these quills of various brilliant colors, and use them for the most attractive yet rude ornamenta.tion of their moccasins, war-belts, and tobaccopouches. As weapons of defense, they protect the animal from the prowess of the grizzly bear, as well as from the fox and minx. Audubon mentions meeting with a lynx that was dying from the effects of a number of these quills sticking in its mouth; for they are so nicely barbed on the ends that they constantly work into the flesh after they have made an entrance. This animal lives upon the bark of trees, and