Our ocean gateway, and place of embarkation for Japan, was Vancouver, - one of those marvels of the West, which, notwithstanding all our previous reading, astonish us when actually seen. Ten years ago Vancouver was a wilderness; a forest covered every portion of the present city. To - day it has good streets and sidewalks, electric lights and trolleycars, banks, churches, some extremely pretty houses, and a good hotel.

What an excitement marks the embarkation - day at this Hotel Vancouver! What searching glances pass from one strange group of travelers to another, as if to read the characters and dispositions of the men and women who are to be their fellow - passengers for fourteen days, - aye, more than that; - to be, perchance, their fellow-travelers for many months, meeting on other steamers, or in Chinese streets, or possibly in the palm-groves of Ceylon. No gaiety is yet discernible. It is the hour for farewells. The reading-room is filled with busy scribes, whose scratching pens and long - drawn sighs alone disturb the silence of the place.

We saw, on the last day, at least a score of ladies, bent almost double on divans or arm-chairs, using alternately their writing - tablets and their handkerchiefs, - their tears apparently flowing much more freely than the ink from their fountain pens. Telegraph boys were meanwhile running to the various rooms with good-bye messages from eastern friends. "No use in sending them out," the b/ase operator told me; "they are all alike. Might just as well hoist a flag with the letters 'B. V.' on it; for every message ends with the same words: 'Bon Voyage!'"

The Empress Of Japan.

The "Empress" In A Storm.

But now the actual sailing-time has come; the last fond messages have been received; the gang-plank is thrown off; the huge propeller moves; and we have left our native land to make the circuit of the world. Of course some tears are shed; some cheeks grow paler at the thought of all that lies before us in the twenty-five thousand miles of land and water we must traverse; but these are soon forgotten in contemplation of the ship itself, - the Empress of Japan. This is one of the finest steamers in the world, and like her sister ships, the Empress of China and the Empress of India, is a vessel of six thousand tons and of ten thousand horsepower. Graceful and beautiful she looked, - her great hull snow-white to the water's edge, to shield it better from the tropic sun.

A Japanese Village.

Aside, however, from the speed, strength, and comfort of the steamers, the voyage across the North Pacific does not call forth enthusiastic praise. It is a lonely, unfrequented route. We saw no sign of land or life for thirteen days. The cold, too, was excessive. Unless wrapped up with extra care, we could not sit on deck with any comfort, although protected from the wind by canvas screens. Moreover, in its sudden changes, this North Pacific rivals the Mediterranean in winter, and when aroused, its billows are colossal. During our voyage there were some hours, and even days, when all was reasonably calm; but there were others when tremendous winds tore into shreds the crests of white-capped waves and filled the air with blinding spray. Hours there were, when trunks not merely slid, but bounded, clear across the room, and landed with their casters in the air, like the hoofs of a rolling horse; hours when even the pantry stove revolted at such treatment and hurled its glowing coals about the floor. I recall an unusually stormy period when the diet of at least two wretched passengers for an entire day consisted of one grape, - and my companion ate the grape!

The day which passed most quickly on this voyage was that which we deliberately dropped from the calendar, on crossing the one hundred and eightieth meridian of longitude, just half-way around the world from London, and equidistant, east and west, from the observatory at Greenwich. Some wicked passengers ascribed our stormy weather to the missionaries on board, claiming that gales at sea are their invariable attendants. However that may be, there certainly were times when all the passengers (missionaries included) would have agreed with the old Japanese proverb - "A stormy sea-voyage is an inch of hell."