This print (lithograph) depicts a canoe with an American flag on its stern drawing near the huts on the Jurong river bank. The artist, Peter Bernhard Wilhelm Heine, had been on board Commodore Matthew Perry's 1854 expedition to Japan to demand that it open its ports to world trade. Heine drew this image while the squadron stopped at Jurong Point in Singapore on the way to Japan. Also observable in the background is a raging fire in the town, which was a common sight in the 19th century. This print was published in F.L. Hawkes' 'Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan in the Years 1852, 1853 and 1854 under the Command of the Commodore M.C. Perry, United States Navy' in 1856.