As the Commodore prepared to depart, the commissioners said there was one article intended for the President, which had not yet been exhibited.  They accordingly conducted the Commodore and his officers to the beach, where one or two hundred sacks of rice were pointed out, heaped up in readiness to be sent on board the ships.  As that immense supply of substantial food seemed to excite some wonder on the part of the Americans, Yenoske the interpreter remarked that it was always customary with the Japanese, when bestowing royal presents, to include a certain quantity of rice, although he did not say whether the quantity always amounted, as on the present occasion, to hundreds of sacks.

While contemplating these substantial evidences of Japanese generosity, the attention of all was suddenly riveted upon twenty-five monstrous fellows who tramped down the beach like so many huge elephants.  They were professional wrestlers and formed part of the retinue of the princes, who kept them for their private amusement and for public entertainment.  They were enormously tall, and tremendously heavy.  Their scant costume, which was merely a colored cloth about the loins, adorned with fringes and emblazoned with the armorial bearings of the prince to whom each belonged, revealed their gigantic proportions in all the bloated fulness of fat and extent of muscle.

Two or three of these huge monsters were the most famous wrestlers in Japan and ranked as the champion Tom Cribbs and Sayers of the country.  Koyanagi, the reputed bully of the capital, was one of them, and paraded himself with the conscious pride of superior size and strength.  He was especially brought to the Commodore that he might examine his massive form.  The commissioners insisted that the monstrous fellow should be minutely inspected, that the hardness of his well-rounded muscle should be felt, and that the fatness of his cushioned frame should be tested by the touch.  The Commodore accordingly attempted to grasp his arm, which he found as solid as it was huge, and then passed his hand over the monstrous neck, which fell in folds of massive flesh, like the dewlap of a prize ox.  As some surprise was naturally expressed at this wondrous exhibition of animal development the monster himself gave a grunt expressive of his flattered vanity.

They were so enormously big that they appeared to have lost their distinctive features, and seemed to be only twenty-five masses of fat.  Their eyes were barely visible through a long perspective of socket, the prominence of their noses was lost in the puffiness of their bloated cheeks, and their heads were set almost directly on their bodies with merely folds of flesh where the neck and chin are usually found.  Their great size, however, was more owing to development of muscle than to deposition of fat; for, although they were evidently well fed, they were not less well exercised, and capable of great feats of strength.