ABSTRACT
The treaties of 1858 granted three open ports for residence and trade—namely, Nagasaki, Kanagawa and Hakodate; and they promised two—Niigata, on the west coast, and Hyogo, which is generally known by the name of its foreign half, Kobe. The foreigners in Kobe not unnaturally felt themselves in an uncertain position, and had a number of frights, the worst of all when some retainers of Bizen fired on a couple of French soldiers who accidentally crossed their line. All the liners call at Kobe, foreign and Japanese alike, and all the coasting service—a little fleet in itself—besides the small steamers plying about the Inland Sea. Except for some severe heat in midsummer, the climate is considered unusually pleasant, and altogether Kobe is the favorite port with the foreign residents. There are several delightful excursions by rail from Kobe. Farthest from Kobe and most frequented of foreigners, is Arima, fourteen hundred feet up in the bed of a dead volcano.
