. Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's mission to China and Japan in the years 1857, '58, '59 . of a norimon on this occa-sion, and obtained a view of the crowd in a squat-ting posture; for while the train of waspassing, the people sat on their heels to obtain a goodview of the occupants. As some of these were navalofficers in full uniform, they exhibited signs of un-usual satisfaction. In order not to dirty the mats of our hosts, wew^ere each provided with a pair of slippers in which toscuffle across the yard, for it is not etiquette in Japanfor any but the owner of the house to go b
. Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's mission to China and Japan in the years 1857, '58, '59 . of a norimon on this occa-sion, and obtained a view of the crowd in a squat-ting posture; for while the train of waspassing, the people sat on their heels to obtain a goodview of the occupants. As some of these were navalofficers in full uniform, they exhibited signs of un-usual satisfaction. In order not to dirty the mats of our hosts, wew^ere each provided with a pair of slippers in which toscuffle across the yard, for it is not etiquette in Japanfor any but the owner of the house to go beyond theouter threshold in his norimon. At that point allguests are put down, and walk to the next entrance. Passing over a bridge which spanned the moat,and under a gateway of massive proportions, we foundourselves within the walls of the citadel at the oppo-site side from that on which we had visited it in ourride of the day before. Unluckily we had not far to go, so that we sawscarcely anything of the interior of this interestingspot. A broad street, similar to those in the Princes. THE JAPANESE MINISTERS. 151 quarter, led us to a handsome gateway ; this, on oneaccount at all events, we were not a little relieved tofind, was our journeys end, as the posture during anhour and a half had been a trying one for Britishlegs. Emergiug from our box-like conveyances, weshuffled after Moriyama, who was always at his some steps, at the top of which we relin-quished our slippers,.we passed through a series ofante-chambers, with walls of paper screens, until wewere ushered finally into an oblong apartment, at thefurther end of which, on the left-hand side, stood thetwo Ministers behind two low square tables and sixwax candles on single stands, for it was by this time7 Exactly facing them were three tables andsix more candles, behind which we took up ourposition. For some time we all remained standing,and the usual complimentary expressions were inter-changed. Then a
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