FIRING TEA.
"You know how a tea-chest looks, so I need not describe it any more than to say that the chest is lined with tin, and that the tin is carefully soldered, so that not a single particle of dampness can get in while the tea is on the ocean. If it should, the tea would be spoiled, as the least dampness will injure it, and a great deal will make it quite useless. They always try to hurry the new crop of tea as rapidly as they can, since it is the best, and has more and better flavor than the crop of the previous year. When a ship sails with new tea, she races for home as hard as she can go, and the quickest voyages ever made from this part of the world to Europe and America have been made by ships with cargoes of new tea."
When the party sailed from Yokohama, they found themselves on board a steamer which was, and was not, Japanese. She was built in New York, and formerly ran between that city and Aspinwall. Subsequently she was sent to Japan in the service of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and was sold, along with several other American steamers, to a Japanese company. This company was formed with Japanese capital, and its management was Japanese; but the ships were foreign, and the officers and engineers were mostly English or American.
The Doctor told the boys that the Mitsu Bishi Company, as this Japanese organization was called, was increasing every year the number of its ships. It received assistance from the government in the form of a mail contract, and was evidently doing very well. The steamers ran once a week each way between Yokohama and Shanghai, touching at Kobe and Nagasaki, and there were lines to other ports of Japan. The Japanese were studying naval architecture and making good progress, and they hoped before many years to construct their own ships. Every year they reduced the number of foreigners in their service, and some of their establishments were entirely under native management.
HIOGO (KOBE).
The second morning after leaving Yokohama, they were at Kobe, and the steamer anchored off the town. Kobe and Hiogo are practically one and the same place. The Japanese city that stands there was formerly known as Hiogo, and still retains that name, while the name of Kobe was applied to that portion where the foreigners reside. The view from the water is quite pretty, as there is a line of mountains just back of the city; and as the boys looked intently they could see that the mountains were inhabited. There are several neat little houses on the side of the hills, some of them the residences of the foreigners who go there to get the cool air, while the rest are the homes of the Japanese. There is a liberal allowance of tea-houses where the public can go to be refreshed, and there is a waterfall where a mountain stream comes rattling down from the rocks to a deep pool, where groups of bathers are sure to congregate in fine weather. The town stands on a level plain, where a point juts into the water, and there is nothing remarkable about it. If they had not seen Yokohama and Tokio, they might have found it interesting; but after those cities the boys were not long in agreeing that a short time in Kobe would be all they would wish.
But they were at the port of Osaka and Kioto, and their thoughts were turned towards those important cities. There was no difficulty in going there, as the railway was in operation to Osaka, twenty miles, and to Kioto, thirty miles farther on. But Frank was seized with an idea, which he lost no time in communicating to his friends. It was this: