On the morning of the 18th October the Vega again weighed anchor, to proceed on her voyage. The course was shaped through the Inland Sea of Japan for Nagasaki. When I requested of the Governor of Kobe permission to land at two places on the way, he not only immediately granted my request, but also sent on the Vega the same English-speaking official from his court who had before attended me to Kioto. The weather was clear and fine, so that we had a good opportunity of admiring the magnificent environs of the Inland Sea. They resemble much the landscape in a northern archipelago. The views here are however more monotonous in consequence of their being less variety in the contours of the mountains. Here as at Kobe the hills consist mainly of a species of granite which is exposed to weathering on so large a scale that the hard rocks are nearly everywhere decomposed into a yellow
sand unfavourable for vegetation. The splendid wild granite cliffs of the north accordingly are absent here. All the hill-tops are evenly rounded, and everywhere, except where there has been a sand-slip, covered with a rich vegetation, which in consequence of the evenness of height of the trees gives little variety to the landscape, which otherwise is among the most beautiful on the globe.
We landed at two places, on the first occasion at Hirosami. Here some fishermens' cabins and some peasants' houses formed a little village at the foot of a high, much-weathered granite ridge. The burying-place was situated near one of the houses, close to the shore. On an area of some hundred square yards there were numerous gravestones, some upright, some fallen. Some were ornamented with fresh flowers, at one was a Shinto shrine of wooden pins, at another stood a bowl with rice and a small saki bottle. Our zoologists here made a pretty rich collection of littoral animals, among which may be mentioned a cuttle-fish which had crept down amongst the wet sand, an animal that is industriously searched for and eaten by the natives. Among the cultivated plants we saw here, as many times before in the high-lying parts of the country, an old acquaintance from home, namely buckwheat.
The second time the Vega anchored at a peasant village right opposite Shimonoseki. When we landed there came an official on board, courteously declaring that we had no right to land at that place. But he was immediately satisfied and made no more difficulties when he was informed that we had the permission of the Governor, and that instead of the usual passport an official from Kobe accompanied the vessel. Shimonoseki has a melancholy reputation in European-Japanese history from the deeds of violence done here by a united English, French, Dutch, and American fleet of seventeen vessels on the 4th and 5th September, 1864, in order to compel the Japanese to open the sound to foreigners, and the unreasonably heavy compensation which after the victory was won they demanded from the conquered. Although only fifteen years have passed since this occurred, there appears to be no trace of bitter feeling towards Europeans among the inhabitants of the region. At least we were received at the village in the neighbourhood of which we landed with extraordinary kindness. The village was situated at the foot of a rocky ridge, and consisted of a number of houses arranged in a row along a single street, the fronts of the houses being as usual occupied as shops, places for selling saki, and workshops for home industry. The only remarkable things besides that the village had to offer consisted of a Shinto temple surrounded by beautiful trees and a considerable salt-work, which consisted of extensive, shallow, well-planned ponds now nearly dry, into which the sea-water is admitted in order to
