Later in the day we climbed the hill behind the temple, then came down and bathed, having tea at a delightful little tea-house, taking tiffin ashore beneath the tiny-leafed maples near a brook; we went aboard in the late afternoon, and, hoisting anchor, steamed away.
Next morning we saw the sun rise at Moji. We passed Shimonoseki and then steamed out into the China Sea, keeping the picturesque shore of Kyushu in sight all the way. We picked our course through the outlying islands and the swirling straits of Hirado, and reached Nagasaki late at night. Contenting ourselves with one look at its twinkling lights, we retired. Morning showed us once more its beautiful harbour, the mountains range on range behind it, and the city itself on either side, the houses rising above each other on long terraces to the summits of the hills on which Nagasaki is built.
Near us a big ship was coaling—a wonderful sight to one who beholds it for the first time. It was surrounded by countless barges upon which were swarming crowds of Japanese—men, women and children. Forming a long line that reached from the barges up a ladder into the ship's hold, they handed baskets of coal from one to the other, so that a continuous stream poured steadily into the ship. The strangeness of the costumes, the unusual sight of women doing a man's work—many of them with babies strapped to their backs—added to the interest of the busy scene. Down in the hold, where the heat must have been suffocating, they plodded on, men and women, clad chiefly in coal-dust. All day long they worked away with happy smiles, the babies bobbing up and down on their mothers' backs, doubtless wondering what it was all about. The sight reminded me of the passage in the Æneid, where the poet speaks of the ants as "tiny toilers of giant industry," and describes them carrying crumbs in their mouths to the common storehouse in a seemingly never-ending line.
As we steamed out of the harbour, the green hills rose steeply from the water with houses and shrines peeping through the trees, backed by a still higher range of hills which were finally lost in the blue distance or broke off into crags and cliffs.
CHAPTER XIV
FLOWERS, INDOORS AND OUT
"If one should inquire of you concerning the spirit of a true Japanese, point to the wild cherry blossoms shining in the sun."
The poet Motoori.
