File:Bjh43 Yokohama.jpg

English: YOKOHAMA. IN THE beginning of 1859, Yokohama was an insignificant fishing village, in the midst of a marsh on the opposite side of the bay to Kanagawa, which town was originally the one named by Treaty to be opened to Foreign trade on the 1st July, 1859. Whether the Japanese conceived that by placing Foreigners in a comparatively isolated position, they could exercise a greater restriction on intercourse, or whether they saw that the position of Yokohama was better adapted for landing and shipping purposes, is now of little consequence; but they voluntarily went to great expense in constructing a causeway connecting Yokohama with the Tokaido, and in building piers and landing places; they moved as if by magic, a considerable number of people and houses, and erected sundry small godowns, &c., in anticipation of the arrival of foreign merchants; and although the foreign Consuls were at first domiciled at Kanagawa, and Ministers demurred at what seemed to be an evasion of the letter of the Treaty, still Yokohama, from the fact of its greater convenience as a shipping place, grew and increased daily.