A dinner was given on the Susquehanna, by her commander, to Yezimon, governor of the province of Uraga, and a suite of ten others, among whom was the little peripatetic consumptive of the artillery. The Japanese being accustomed to the use of the chop-sticks at their meals—which are not of ivory as the Chinese, but lacquered black—were a little awkward at first in the use of the Christian assistants of knife and fork, but it did not take them long to acquire the requisite facility, when they made up for lost time. The cherry cordial, of which they are very fond, did not go untasted, and champaigne was by no means neglected by them. Accustomed to the small saki-cup, they admired the contents more than the size of our glasses. When any health was proposed, the Japanese—as if using the staghead-pattern cup dug up at Pompeii—turned their goblets upside down on the table, to show the absence of heel-taps.
The health of their emperor was drank, for which the governor, through his interpreter, returned thanks and gave the health of the president of the United States; and after his own health had been given, he gave the health of the commodore (not present). This was all very well apparently, but I shrewdly suspect that for the hint, they were indebted to Mr. A. L. C. Portman, who was present and interpreted from the Dutch, in which they preferred conversing at all times: he is too conversant with the proper etiquette of such occasions, to let this surmise go unindulged in. They remained at the table some two hours, during which time one of their number present, “by request,” sang a Japanese song—if a kind of a cross between the half wail, half-vocal screech of the Chinese, a boy dragging a stick over the palings after him, and a severe asthma, may be called a song. In return one of the lieutenants of the ship present, sang “Ginger Blue.” “Ginger Blue” sang in the hermetic empire! What impertinence, O Jonathan! to indulge in such refrains before the potentate presence that once required knocking of head from a Russian count! Thy good friend the _London Times_, will “condemn thee to everlasting redemption for this,” and when it learns it, how many additional articles will appear in its columns headed “_More American Wit_.”