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lit in the stern of such fishing-boats as are out, and twinkle afar like fire-flies.

There is a wide field for discovery along this lonely and beautiful coast. As a yachting ground it has unsurpassable attractions. In respect of scenery it is like the Kyles of Bute, with the duration of its beauty lengthened fiftyfold. On both evenings that we steamed downthe Sea there was a sunset of rich beauty, each totally different from the other. No pen could describe the beauty of the sunsets in Japan. Many fantastic names have been used as the title of books upon Japan. If I were writing a book on the country and wanted a title of that order, I should call it "Sunset Land."

Nagasaki, the last port usually touched at by visitors to Japan going westward, is also a foreign settlement, but is altogether unlike Kobé. The foreigners stretch their houses on the crescent facing the bay and on the hill behind. Nagasaki proper lies over the bridges to the left, and is not at all easy to find. We undertook to discover it by walking, and found ourselves in some narrow dirty streets by the water's edge. Jinrikishas rescued us, and took us into the town, which lay in quite another quarter. Many of the houses are built over ditches, canals, and other more or

less undesirable waterways. This gives the place a squalid appearance, which is nowhere relieved by signs of affluence. Nagasaki is, I am told, in a poor way just now. Its most prosperous local industry is the carving of tortoiseshell. A larger mine of wealth is found in the coal mines, which are not far distant. Nagasaki is the great coaling station of Japan. The coal is fairly good and cheap, costing about seven shillings a ton at the pit's mouth.

The coaling of a big steamer is a curious and interesting sight, which may be watched with more comfort since Nagasaki coal possesses the curious quality of being comparatively free from dust. An innumerable army of coolies are engaged, fully one-half being women. They stand almost shoulder to shoulder in a line extending from the hold of the collier to the coal-hole of the steamer. The coal is filled in small baskets, which are handed along the living line with incredible rapidity. The human chain works as regularly, as swiftly, and much upon the same principle as the grain elevator.

On a quiet Sunday evening, the fourth day after leaving Nagasaki, we stole into Hongkong harbour. It was almost a pitch-dark night, and there were some anxious moments

for the captain on the bridge, making his way through the narrow strait that leads from sea to harbour. The difficulty was increased by the number of sampans and junks gliding about, not every one with a light. Our captain had a great respect for the sailing qualities of the Chinese skippers. The Japanese sampans and junks hang about the pathway of a big steamer, and trust to it to keep clear of them, sometimes spoiling their chances by altering their course at the last moment. The best thing to do with a Chinaman, the captain found, was to trust him and leave him alone. Still he was apt to get perilously near and òn a dark night a procession of junks crossing and re-crossing the bows is a little embarrassing.

So we glided along half-speed over the still dark waters, the silence broken only by the chant of the man throwing the lead, the cry of the look-out from the bows, and the low voice of the captain directing the steering. Hongkong lay right ahead, long rows of lights against the dark shadow of the hill on which it stands. One light, far up the hill, was in motion-doubtless the lamps of the carriage of some distant diner-out returning homewards. This was the only sign of life in the town. For the rest, the long rows of lights were fixed, and a weird silence brooded over the town.

We anchored at the buoy for the night, and going ashore in the morning found that warm welcome from utter strangers which is one of the characteristics of Englishmen in the East. That we were going to stay only forty hours in the place was made a matter of personal lamentation, though it was admitted that all Hongkong had to show the foreigners might easily be seen in a day. It is a lively, bustling town, though as compared with its former bounding prosperity Ichabod is written on its wall.

It is the same story here as at Yokohama, Shanghai, and other outposts of Eastern trade which English people have coolly appropriated. In the earlier days, about the time that Jos Sedley was collector at Boggley Wollah, and for some years after, fortunes were made by British merchants at Hongkong. Making princely incomes, they lived in princely style, and shared their good fortune with their clerks. Those were the days when "messes" flourished, and the whole commercial establishment sat down to sumptuous meals provided by the head of the house. This patriarchal way of living has vanished with fifty per cent. profits, and the junior mess is but a tradition. Still, if competition and restricted trade have cut down profits, Hongkong does a snug

business, and some of the merchants retain, at least in their private houses, the old princely style of living. The population is, of course, chiefly composed of Chinese, who crowd their quarter in a manner which seems to be free from sanitary restrictions. The danger of this state is not wholly unrecognized, and I heard one cheerful resident confidently predict that within two years an epidemic would break out, which would decimate the population. The climate in summer is unbearably hot for Europeans, and to-day, albeit we are within measurable distance of Christmas, the thermometer stands at 80°.

Happily Hongkong has its Simla close at hand. The Peak, a hill eighteen hundred feet high, standing at the back of the town, is the regular residence of the European community during the summer months. The governor has a fine house there, and round it are grouped the pretty bungalows of the merchants. It is a magnificent site for a residence, commanding a far-reaching view of the land-locked bay and ships that ever come and go. It is not an easy journey to make night and morning, but that is rather the affair of the chair-men. An Englishman would never think of walking to the Peak. He hires a chair, and is carried up in lordly

VOL. II.

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