t, as well
as the most varied, of any portion of the globe. The cultivation of the
soil is skillfully and thoroughly systematized, the greatest possible
results being obtained from a given area. This is partly due to a system
of thorough enrichment, applied in the form of liquid manure, and
entirely by hand. Its flora is spontaneous and magnificent, repaying the
least attention by a development and profuseness of yield that is
surprising. Next in importance to the product of rice, which is the
staple food of the people, comes that of the mulberry and tea-plants,
one species of the former not only feeding the silk-worm, but also, as
has been mentioned, affording the fibre of which paper is made, as well
as cordage and dress material. In usefulness the bamboo is most
remarkable, growing to a height of fifty or sixty feet, and entering
into the construction of house-frames, screens, mats, pipes, and sails.
The umbrella-pine grows to a height of a hundred feet, with dense
foliage, and the cedars reach two hundred feet, with a girth of twenty,
which is, however, far exceeded by the noble camphor-trees. The camphor
of commerce is extracted from the stem and roots, cut into small pieces,
by a simple process of decoction.

As at San Francisco, there is an abundance of birds hovering constantly
about the harbor of Nagasaki, not sea-gulls, but a brown fishing-hawk,
which here seems to take the place of the gull, swooping down upon its
finny prey after the same fashion, and uttering a wild, shrill cry when
doing so. Another peculiarity about this feathery fisherman is that he
affects the rigging of ships lying at anchor, and roosts in the shrouds
or on the spars, which a sea-gull or other ocean bird is rarely known to
do. This harbor, in its sheltered character, resembles a Swiss or Scotch
lake, many of its peculiarities being identical with them. The hills
spring from the very water's edge, and the pine is the prevailing tree;
the principal difference being an inclination here to more tropical
verdure than in the localities referred to. The bay is nearly
land-locked, and while a pretty heavy gale may be blowing just outside,
the surface of the harbor would be scarcely ruffled.

The ship took in coal here after a style quite Japanese. Large flat
boats came alongside, each laden with many tons of coal from a native
mine near at hand; and a broad port-hole being opened near the ship's
coal bunks, a line of Japanese girls and boys,