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200 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
at the base of a line of bluffs. The long wooden
house with its peaked roofs, erected by the Yedo
government for the reception of President Fillmore's
letter at the hands of Commodore Perry, was still
standing. Compared
with the straw-thatched cottages
of bamboo plastered with mud, it appeared
like a palace amid shanties.
"It looks like a fox's tea-bag [large mushroom]
beside a row of little toadstools, does n't " it ? said
Honda.
" Yes ; how I should like to burn it "
to-night said
!
Ban. "But I suppose we should be in a trap, for
the place has a guard, I see."
True indeed, for all around the new building, made
of unpainted wood, but a work of fine carpentering,
there was stretched a purple curtain of bunting about
six feet high. By the large white crests or coats-ofarms
having the design of the moon floating on
silvery waves, Honda saw that the officers in charge
and the men temporarily on guard belonged to the
southern clan of Kuroda. This particular kind of
curtain signified government property and business.
The crests or armorial bearings might, at a distance
from shipboard, look like the port-holes or embrasures
of a fortification. At first the Americans
thought that the Japanese, as was alleged of the
Chinese, built canvas forts to scare off enemies.
As this military curtain was from ancient times
the sign of military occupation or business, the
government of Yedo, or the camp,
bakufu, or curtain government.
was called the