The vessels selected for this somewhat doubtful trip were the steamer Sydney of the Indian Navy, and the American ship Fanny M'Henry, chartered to the British Government, but commanded by Captain Smith, a young Virginian, and a most courteous and agreeable specimen of the "Old Dominion." Leaving Nagasaki, or "Long Cape," as its meaning implies, we soon reached Hirado Island, and proceeded through a narrow passage of two or three miles in length, with a pretty sharp turn in it, a fort on either side, and barely room for large vessels to pass. Here a rather exciting incident occurred. When we were about two-thirds through, and opposite one of the forts, the tillerchains of the steamer got jammed, and it came to a dead stop in the middle of the channel. That was all very well for the steamer, which could keep itself pretty stationary; but the twelve hundred ton ship behind had not only a great deal of way on it, but had also its topsails set; so there was no rest for it, and down it came towards the steamer, almost justifying the exclamation of a startled Irish sailor-"Jasus! we're into her." It seemed as if the Fanny had no choice between running down the tug or running herself upon the rocks; but by the narrowest shave she managed to get past without doing either. One of the hawsers by which the two vessels were attached was cut away in time, but in the confusion of the moment the other was allowed to

remain until it turned the head of the ship toward one of the sides of the passage, and shaved off the cabin windows of the steamer before it snapped, from the strain upon it, with a noise like the report of a small cannon. Then there came a trying manoeuvre for the ship in which I was. With the wind still in her topsails, she flew across the narrow channel like a thing of life determined to dash itself in pieces against the opposite shore. But luckily our captain was a thorough seaman, and his crew were all active able-bodied English sailors. Never have I seen even a man-of-war more smartly handled. The men flew to the different ropes with wonderful speed, and the vessel was put about just in time to escape destruction; for, on looking over the stern, I saw it was only two or three feet from the sharppointed rocks which lined the shore. Even there the danger did not end. The water of the channel was too deep to allow of anchoring, and the current was too strong to allow of our lying-to; so there was nothing for it but to make a bold attempt to sail on, though the three Japanese pilots were all on board the steamer; and across the further entrance, through which we had to take our perilous way, there was an ugly line of reefs. Fortune, however, was in our favour, and we sailed safely through into more open water, where anchorage was found until the steamer again took us in tow. This adventure rather interfered with observations; but I saw there was a large town on the island of Hirado, with the residence of a Damio or prince, surrounded with trees and fortifications. The people on shore appeared quite stupified by the extraordinary, and, to them, inexplicable nature of our manœuvres. Perhaps they thought that a sudden fit of insanity had attacked the Fanny M'Henry, or that our motions were preliminary to an attack upon their position.

Towards evening we got pretty well clear of islands, and on our left

"There gloomed the dark broad sea" of the Corean Strait. As it was too dark then to proceed farther, we steamed round and round till

daylight, when we found ourselves beside Fiki Island, and off the western entrance of the Inland Sea. The mountains which

stretched round were bolder, and with less wood upon them, than those passed on the previous day. The passage we had now to go through was that between the great islands of Kiusiu and Nippon; and the abundance of population began to show itself. There were numbers of large junks, perfectly clean, elaborately carved, and each carrying a large beautiful white sail on a mast composed of various pieces of wood bound together with rings of iron, as is the case with the best class of English and American ships. The lower hills had plenty of wood; the sandy gravel of the shore was covered with trees and bushes to where it abruptly broke at the water's edge; and there was sufficient bright blue sky, with a few white clouds floating across it, to give fine effects of light and shade on the forests and green fields which stretched up the hills behind, and on the great_green rolling mountains beyond. On the right, as the passage began to narrow, there was a Damio's palace, and a large town, or a succession of villages, extending for several miles, and larger than Nagasaki. The junks which we saw did not appear to have any guns or stinkpots like those of China; for foreign trade, with its disorganising influence, had not been there to prepare the way for native piracy.

The

snug little bays and villages had quaint vessels lying before them, some of which were painted, gilded, and adorned with fine carved filigree work. The cottages of the smaller villages were shaped somewhat like the huts of the islands of the Pacific; but in the other villages there were good large houses, some of them double-storied, others with verandahs round, and steps leading up

Such were the lines which occurred to my recollection in connection with this new sea and these pleasant isles: for it is not likely that the Japanese will long be left undisturbed in the happiness which they evidently enjoy beyond any other people. The rude music, not of our woes, but of Western activity, will soon disturb, and are already disturbing, the ancient arrangements of those happy isles.

The town upon the right, on entering the channel, is called Kokurna, and after passing it the sunken rocks in the way are pointed out by tall erect stones, hat-shaped at the top. Indeed, all through the Inland Sea, sunken rocks are marked by stone shafts; and other means, such as lighthouses, have been employed to render navigation safe. After passing a junk-building yard, we came on another large town upon the left, called Simonosaki, with fine temples behind it embosomed in wood. In front there was an excellent stone seawall, with convenient piers, which might put Hong-Kong to shame, with large junks lying alongside of them. The whole town seemed to have turned out to gaze at us, and the wonder-struck crews of the native vessels raised their arms to us by way of salutation. Large as the town was, one cannot go a day's sail up the waters in the neighbourhood of Canton without meeting half-a-dozen of the same

size, or even larger. Japan by no means struck me as being so thickly populated as China; and I should think Dr Williams's estimate of about twenty millions of people to be probably near the truth.

After leaving Simono-saki, the passage began to open up into a wide loch, with lower, but still picturesque, hills on either side. It reminded me strongly of lake Windermere, but had quite a number of beautiful wooded islets. Then it was that the Suwo Nada opened before us, and the mountains became dim in the distance, while a fresh cool breeze ruffled its inland waters, which had then scarcely been vexed by any foreign keels. It was something to get into what, by a certain stretch of phraseology, might be called "a new sea;" but I believe we went down-stairs to discuss Shanghae fowls and drink claretand-water.

Proceeding down the Inland Sea, the south shore was about ten miles distant, and the north about fifteen. The white puckered sails of junks were plentifully scattered over the blue water, and their seamen examined us through rather dim telescopes of native manufacture. On the south side the mountains were very high, rising up occasionally into volcano-like peaks. There was a good deal of wood and pasture upon them, but also many barren streaks, especially near the shore, and the country was not so rich as it is on the other side of the Fiki Passage. Still, everywhere in Japan the amount of wood excites attention. The fields are surrounded by thick belts of tangled trees and brushwood, and the growth is preserved by a Japanese law, which requires every person who cuts down a tree to plant another instead. On the second day after entering we were surprised by observing an English-rigged cutter in the distance, and for a moment entertained the fancy that perhaps Lord Dufferin, or some other adventurous English yachtsman, might be trying to grope his way before us

"into the bowls of Japan;" but it proved to be a vessel which one of the Damios had got on a foreign model. The Japanese have some wonderful antique-looking large vessels, in imitation of what must have been the Dutch build about two centuries ago; but they are by no means backward in adopting improvements which increase their command over their own seas. Already they have several steamers, which they know well how to manage, and very lately one of these crossed the Pacific, from San Francisco to Yedo, managed entirely by Japanese officers and engineers. This disposition of theirs to adopt the machinery and also the arms of the West is very laudable; but it will enable them to keep their own internal trade by water in their own hands; and it will evidently make them much more formidable in war than the Chinese have ever been. In such a case they would probably draw further supplies of arms from Holland or America; and it is to be noticed that the policy of the United States in Japan -which country they were the first to open up in recent times, and which they are disposed to claim as a special field of their own-has been latterly in opposition to that pursued by the representatives of England and France.

After passing, on our right, the entrance of the Boungo Channel, which runs southwards to the open ocean, the Suwo Nada appeared to close up altogether, owing to the immense number of islands and islets

"Summer isles of Eden lying

In dark purple spheres of sea." Many of these were almost pyramidal-shaped, and yet terraced, for purposes of cultivation, in an almost impossible manner. We tried to anchor for the night quite close to a village on one of these islands, but could not get sufficiently shallow water, though we almost brushed the shore. The people, and especially the women and children, came out in great numbers in boats

to see us, and were not backward in their salutations and exclamations of gratified surprise. They raised so loud a laugh when "the Doctor," our black cook, showed his head over the bulwarks, that even that hardened individual was abashed, and withdrew, cursing, to his own sanctuary. A little way beyond there was anchorage in ten fathoms, and the passages opened up into pretty broad stretches of water between numerous islands, which sometimes formed quite a labyrinth. Every little bay had a village in it, and the bright verdure came down close to the water's edge; but here and there a red barren hill looked as if it had been peeled of its vegetation. A sky so bright and blue, and an air so dry and pure as that we then enjoyed, are rarely to be found anywhere. On the southern side the hills seemed to be composed chiefly of marl and limestone, with quarries in them; but as this, the fourth day of our voyage, drew on, the hills became very barren, being of hard rounded sandstone, only very imperfectly sprinkled over with bushes and trees. Some spots, however, were very beautiful, with wood running up grass-covered hills, like strips of dark embroidery on a light-green velvet mantle, while in the sandstone above the water's edge there were wave-worn caves, which Don Juan and Haidée would not have despised. On the south, the high mountains of Sikok, crowned with white clouds, marked the coast-line. Possibly the pilots went unnecessarily about among the islands in order to make the navigation appear as intricate as possible; but, if not, they must have had the bump of locality most enormously developed in order to remember the way. On some of the more richly wooded hills there was table-land at the top, with green cultivated fields and tracts of warm sunny pasture spotted with little black cattle. It being just after the close of the wet season (which was late this year), and in

the middle of summer, the country looked exceeding fresh and green. The variety and succession of views were too great to allow many of them being impressed upon the mind; and we felt as if making a rapid survey of a large picturegallery or a long moving panorama. This kind of work is, after all, not very satisfactory. Goethe has said that, when he desired to understand the power of nature, he selected an eckschen, or little corner, for contemplation. A certain repose is

necessary if we are to realise the life, the power of nature, when manifested in the translucent depth of air, the calm sleeping sea, the awful mountain - forms; and to appreciate her wilder moods, she must be seen when shaken by her own fury, driving the clouds across the sky, lashing the waves into foam, and tossing the arms of the trees toward the darkened heaven.

Passing into a picturesque loch, with high dark wooded hills around, and a mile or two in breadth, we noticed many fields interspersed among the trees and jungle.` In a small bay, just beyond, there was a large dock, substantially walled in, and a gently shelving sandy shore affording good anchorage. Here a number of old women came out to gaze at us in fishing sampans, looking out of their bleared old eyes in mute amazement at having lived to see the day. In a larger sea, on which we soon entered, bounded on the south by the high mountains of Sikok, and on the north by innumerable islands, and with no visible outlet to it, the barren redness of some of the hills rather augmented the brilliancy of the scene by adding another colour to the deep blue of the water, the bright blue of the sky, the forests' dark green hue, and the white shining clouds lying along the mountaintops. As we got on, however, not even the coast of Southern China could have presented a more sterile appearance; and from one of the mountains on the south there rose the yellow smoke of a volcano.

Suddenly another change: we were among small islands, lying close together, of soft rock worn by the sea into fretted caves, and covered thickly with green ferns. There were little bays with sandy beaches, and little cottages where one would gladly have made selection for a summer residence. The larger villages had breakwaters and piers before them, indicating no small amount of enterprise and trade. From inquiries afterwards made, I found that the shores of this Inland Sea might afford large quantities of oil and sugar-the former at three dollars for a tub of about sixteen gallons, and the latter (refined and white) at about six cents a-pound. Firewood is also exceedingly cheap, is in abundance, and might be profitably taken over to China.

The morning of our fifth day, as the anchor was being raised, presented a most wonderful dawn. First a pale translucent green light filled the whole heaven, gradually changing into a deep ruddy brown, which seemed not so much to colour as to permeate water, islands, and sky, and from that softening into a celestial rosy red. Beside the white castle of a Damio, near which we had anchored, there was the treefringed Tocaido-the great road which runs the entire length of the three large islands of Japan. Here as elsewhere, where I had the opportunity of travelling upon it, it is a fine white broad road, in excellent repair, with side-walks for foot-passengers, lines of trees on either side, and tea-houses at convenient distances for the refreshment of travellers. These houses have no furniture beyond the beautifully clean matting of their floors; but, when required, the wearied wayfarer will be provided with a stool of some kind, and with a quilt and a small bamboo pillow. Tea, rice, fish, and sweet cakes are served by young female attendants, who take pleasure in making themselves as agreeable as possible, and whose appearance is often very charming, if not strictly beautiful in Western eyes,

from their ruddy complexions, finelydeveloped forms, desire to please, and over-beaming cheerfulness. Indeed there was nothing which struck me so much everywhere, and with all classes in Japan, as the unmistakable and unvarying happiness of the people. Certainly, if that is to be the test of national success, they have surpassed all nations. Never did I hear a word spoken in anger, or behold a cross, uncomfortable look; and their faces present either aspects of calm complacency, of smiling enjoyment, or of hearty amusement. If this be sometimes hypocrisy, it is a hypocrisy so like reality as to be quite as good as it, and quite undistinguishable from it. If hypocrisy, it is even more wonderful, and quite as admirable, as the reality could be; for the display of suffering and annoyance is very disagreeable to others, and society owes much to those who always present a smiling face, whatever their internal feelings may be. In this respect our highest and most civilised classes resemble the people of the far East.

"It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,"

when our spirits shall float into the serenity of other airs than those we breathe on earth; but he who has visited the country of the "Sun's Origin" has already had a foretaste of what they may be.

Towards the east end of the Suwo Nada that sea opened out widely, and, leaving the Kino Channel on our right, we found ourselves in a vast bay, the shores of which were crowded with towns, villages, and white palaces, and the water all dotted over with innumerable junks making their way to or from the great port Ohosaka. The end of this bay forms a large semicircle, across which ran a ripple-line marking the influence of the fresh water from the river Engawa, which falls into it. On shore the semicircle was occupied by the town of Ohosaka, extending apparently about ten miles, and diversified by