away, and the headlands of
the celestial empire grew dim, a rosy sunset promised that the next
day should be pleasant, our thoughts turned with the prow of the
China to Japan. We were bound for Nagasaki, to get a full supply of
coal to drive us across the Pacific, having but twelve hundred tons
aboard, and half of that wanted for ballast. It was at the mouth of
the harbor of Nagasaki that there was a settlement of Dutch Christians
for some hundreds of years. An indiscreet letter captured on the way
to Holland by a Portuguese adventurer and maliciously sent to Japan,
caused the tragic destruction of the Christian colony. The enmity of
Christian nations anxious to add to their properties in the islands
in remote seas was so strong that any one preferred that rather than
his neighbors might aggrandize the heathen should prevail. The first
as well as the last rocks of Japan to rise from and sink into the
prodigous waters, through which we pursued our homeward way, bathing
our eyes in the delicious glowing floods of eastern air, were scraggy
with sharp pinnacles, and sheer precipices, grim survivals of the
chaos that it was, before there was light. I have had but glimpses
of the extreme east of Asia, yet the conceit will abide with me that
this is in geology as in history the older world, as we classify our
continents, that a thousand centuries look upon us from the terrible
towers, lonesome save for the flutter of white wings, that witness the
rising of the constellations from the greater ocean of the globe. But
there are green hills as we approach Nagasaki, and on a hillside to the
left are the white walls of a Christian church with a square tower,
stained with traditions of triumphs and suffering and martyrdom long
ago. Nagasaki is like Hongkong in its land-locked harbor, in clinging
to a mountain side, in the circle of illumination at night and the
unceasing paddling of boats from ship to ship and between the ships and
landings. One is not long in discovering that here are a people more
alert, ingenious, self-confident and progressive than the Chinese. As
we approached the harbor there came to head us off, an official steam
launch, with men in uniform, who hailed and commanded us to stop. Two
officers with an intense expression of authority came aboard, and we
had to give a full and particular account of ourselves. Why were we
there? Coaling. Where were we from? Manila and Hongkong. Where were we
going? San Francisco. Ha