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LIKE THE BREATH OF A CLAM. 339
in the water, there was a bustling town full of
quickly moving foreigners, busy merchants, carpenters
sawing and pounding as if for dear life or
double wages, porters carrying bundles, and muscular
fellows pushing with guttural shouts their loaded
carts. Out in the bay a fleet of war and merchant
ships, flying a variety of flags,
steam launches and
lighters, sail and row and scull boats by the hundreds,
made almost a floating city.
For days and weeks beforehand the government
of Yedo had been busy building a causeway running
from Kanagawa over to the " cross strand,"
and in laying out streets and places for the consulates
and other buildings. Large jetties had been
built out into the water from which the ships could
unload their cargoes. Hundreds of merchants were
already on the ground. To build the grand new
houses hundreds of carpenters had been summoned
from Yedo and other cities. The phenomenon was
more like a growth of one of the American cities
on the prairies, for it required but a few days and
weeks for this wonderful treaty port to spring up
as by the touch of a wand.
On this day, July 1, 1859, there were Americans,
Englishmen, Frenchmen, and several other kinds of
Europeans, who were bargaining with and buying
from the Japanese, changing round dollars for square
coins, and each one endeavoring to get the best of
the other in mercantile exchange. The lacquered
cabinets, the choice silks, the carved ivories, the tea,
and all the varied produce of Japan were being