18.
Commodore Perry’s Anxiety

OUT IN HIS STATEROOM on the Pohatan, Commodore Perry wrote letters to the President of the United States and to his friends in the upper echelons of the American navy, and to his wife. When he met with various Japanese contingents it was in order to prepare for his departure to Shimoda, one of the two port cities that were officially opened to Americans by the Kanagawa Treaty of 1854. He was anxious to visit Shimoda and anxious, after that, to sail for home.

He heard nothing of the minstrels, thought of them rarely, and asked after them only once. He was told that they were busy traveling and assumed, by that, that they were doing no harm after all, and having a good time.