HOLLANDER AT DESHIMA WATCHING FOR A SHIP.
The chief use of Deshima, as our friends found it, is to serve as a depository of Japanese wares, and particularly of the kinds for which Nagasaki is famous. Nagasaki vases and Nagasaki lacquer were in such quantities as to be absolutely bewildering, and for once they found the prices lower than at Yokohama. They made a few purchases—their final transactions in Japan—and then turned their attention to a stroll through the city.
There was not much to amuse them after their acquaintance with other cities of Japan, and so they were speedily satisfied. On the hill overlooking the town and harbor they found an old temple of considerable magnitude, then another, and another, and then tea-houses almost without number. In one of the latter they sat and studied the scenery of Nagasaki until evening, when they returned to the steamer.
Another ramble on shore the following morning, and they left the soil of Japan for the deck of the steamer. At noon they were slowly moving down the bay; they passed the island of Pappenberg, and, as they did so, Frank read from a book he had picked up in the ship's cabin the following paragraph:
"In that same year, when the last of the Roman Catholic converts were hurled from the rocky islet of Pappenberg, in the Bay of Nagasaki, a few exiles landed at Plymouth, in the newly discovered continent, where they were destined to plant the seeds of a Protestant faith and a great Protestant empire. And it was the descendants of the same pilgrim fathers that, two centuries later, were the first among Western nations to supply the link of connection wanted, to bring the lapsed heathen race once more within the circle of Christian communion, and invite them anew to take their place in the family of civilized nations."
And while meditating on the mutations of time and the strangeness of many events recorded in history, our friends passed from the harbor of Nagasaki into the open sea.
"Sayonara!" said Frank, raising his cap and bowing towards the receding land.
"Sayonara!" echoed Fred, as he followed his cousin's example. "I say 'Sayonara' now, but I hope that some time in the future I may be able to say 'Ohio.'"
"And so do I," Frank added. "It is a charming country, and I don't think we shall find a more agreeable one anywhere."