Captain Connor, the best and most genial of commanders, puts the ship about that we may "kodak" it, and by degrees the slit of light opens out into a perfect archway.
Over the archipelago of islands, under a green mountain, lies Nagasaki, and we find an entrance—a blind and mysterious one—into its harbour.
The harbour of Nagasaki is very beautiful. It is "long and narrow, winding in among the mountains like a Scotch firth." Every separate mountain is terraced in green circles down to the water's edge, and in each little conical hill the circles get narrower at the top. In some, there are wooded knolls crowned by a chapel, with winding stone steps, that lead up from the black torii on the banks, where prayers are offered for sailors and the safe return of the fishing junks. We pass at the entrance the round island of Pappenburg, where we can still see the flight of steps, down which the Christians were thrown into the sea 300 years ago. We get safely past the quarantine station, pitying a British ship lying bound, with the yellow flag hoisted on her mast. There are red lights, in the shape of a cross, strung from the masts of a sunken vessel across our passage, for last week the captain of this 400-ton brig took out the ballast, and a few hours afterwards she suddenly heeled over and sank, drowning the captain's wife, who was in the cabin, and the first officer.
As we breast this landed-locked harbour, under the opal hues of a delicate sunset, we give to it the palm (always excepting Sydney) over all other harbours. At the head of the bay we see the town and the handsome houses of the consulates on the Bund, and above that again many more pleasantly situated houses, equally handsome and belonging to missionaries.
I do not wish to make any observations on the missionary question, which, without special knowledge, it would be wrong to speak of, but I must say that we have never heard any resident of any foreign country speak a single word in favour of the missionaries. On the contrary, we are struck how they generally condemn them, I hope unjustly, as mischievous, idle, and luxurious.
As we come to our buoy opposite the town, thousands of lights, running out in zig-zag lines into the harbour, seem to come out with one accord, creeping in scattered dots of fire up the mountain sides, and there with these myriads of twinkling lights, winking and blinking at us like a thousand eyes, and with the dull splash of oars in the water, we get such unrestful sleep as is possible on a ship in port. Now we can well imagine the scene described thus:—
"Every year, from the 13th to the 15th of August, the whole population of Nagasaki celebrate the Bon Matsuri, or the Feast of the Dead. The first night all the tombs of those who died in the past year are illuminated with bright-coloured paper lanterns. On the second and third nights all the graves without exception are so illuminated, and the families of Nagasaki install themselves in the cemeteries, where they give themselves up, in honour of their ancestors, to plentiful libations. The bursts of uproarious gaiety resound from terrace to terrace, and rockets fired at intervals seem to blend with the giddy human noises the echoes of the celestial vault. The European residents repair to the ships in the bay to see from the distance the fairy spectacle of the hills, all resplendent with rose-coloured lights.
"But on the third night, suddenly, at about two o'clock in the morning, long processions of bright lanterns are seen to descend from the heights, and group themselves on the shore of the bay, while the mountains gradually return to obscurity and silence. It is fated that the dead embark and disappear before twilight. The living have plaited them thousands of little ships of straw, each provisioned with some fruit and a few pieces of money. The frail embarkations are charged with all the coloured lanterns which were used for the illumination of the cemeteries; the small sails of matting are spread to the wind, and the morning breeze scatters them round the bay, where they are not long in taking fire. It is thus that the entire flotilla is consumed, tracing in all directions large trails of fire. The dead depart rapidly. Soon the last ship has foundered, the last light is extinguished, and the last soul has taken its departure again from this earth."
The next morning we were ashore before breakfast to see the fish market, for Nagasaki is one of the largest fishing ports in the world, and it has been proved that there are 600 specimens of fish brought into this market, by a gentleman who has drawn them and written a book on the subject.
Nagasaki has several canals, and is a quaint little town developed from a fishing village, but with nothing of much interest in it. We spend the day as usual in the shops, plunging with a desperation born of the feeling that it is really our last chance of buying in Japan; we are in an agony of fear up to the last minute lest our purchases should not arrive before the steamer sails at 4 o'clock.