3-021-262 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Opening of the Inland Sea Ports of Japan: site of the foreign settlement conceded at Hiogo, near Osaca, 1868. Engraving of a sketch by Acting Sub-Lieutenant F. J. Palmer, R.N., of H.M.S. Sylvia, Admiralty Surveyor, showing '... the site of the new settlement from the anchorage, the foreground being occupied by a sea wall and dock in course of construction, together with some official residences, which are rapidly being built...The British, French, American, and other foreign merchants, who have been restricted, hitherto, for the most part, to Yokohama, a suburb of Jeddo, and to Nagasaki, where the old Dutch settlement was formed, will now be allowed to reside at Osaca [Osaka]; and a convenient site has been granted to them for the erection of wharves and warehouses in the port of Hiogo [Hyogo]...Osaca, the Japanese city which has just been opened to the civilised world, is situated on the N.E. side of the gulf of that name, the extreme easternmost limit of the beautiful inland sea. Osaca having no port of its own, the water shoaling out some considerable distance, that of Hiogo...distant about ten miles from Osaca, has been selected as the most suitable for the wants of commerce'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.