The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea

by Trumbull White

The empire of Japan is a collection of islands of various dimensions, numbering nearly four thousand, and situated to the east of the Asiatic continent. Only four of these however, are of size sufficient to entitle them to considerable fame, and around these a sort of belt of defense is formed by the thousands of islets. Dai Nippon is the name given by the natives to their beautiful land, and from this expression, which means Great Japan, our own name for the empire has been taken. Foreign writers have very often blundered in calling the largest island Nippon or Niphon. This more properly applies to the entire empire, while the main island is named in the military geography of Japan, Hondo. This word itself means main land. The other three important islands are Kiushiu, the most southeasterly of all; Shikoku, which lies between the latter and Hondo; and Yesso, which is the most northerly of the chain.

Japan occupies an important position on the surface of the globe, measured by political and commercial possibilities. Its position is such that its people may not unreasonably hope to form a natural link between the Occident and the Orient. Lying in the Pacific Ocean, in the temperate zone and not in the torrid, as many have the thought, it bends like a crescent off the continent of Asia. In the extreme north, near the island of Saghalien, the distance from the main land of Asia is so short that it is little more than a day’s sail in a junk. At the southern extremity, where Kiushiu draws nearest to the Corean peninsula, the distance to the main land is even less. Between this crescent of islands and the Asiatic main land is enclosed the Sea of Japan. For more than four thousand miles eastward stretches the Pacific Ocean, with no stopping point for steamers voyaging to San Francisco unless they diverge far from their course for a call at Honolulu.

The island connections of Japan are numerous. To the south are the Liu Kiu islands, which have been annexed to Japan, and still farther the great island of Formosa. To the north are the Kurile islands, which extend far above Yesso and were ceded to Japan by Russia in return for Saghalien, over which rule was formerly disputed. The chain is almost continuous, although broken and irregular, to Kamtchatka, and thence prolonged by the Aleutian islands in an enormous semicircle to Alaska and our own continent.

The configuration of the land is that resulting from the combined effects of volcanic action and wave erosion. The area of the Japanese islands is about one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, or nearly as great as the New England and Middle States. But of this surface nearly two-thirds consists of mountain land, much of it still lying waste and uncultivated though apparently capable of tillage. On the main island a solid backbone of mountainous elevations runs through a great portion of its length, with subordinate chains extending at right angles and rising again in the other islands. The mountains decrease in height towards the south and there are few highlands along the sea coast. The range is reached by a gradual rise from the sea, until the backbone of the great island chain is reached. Japan rises abruptly from the sea, and deep water begins very close to the shore, indicating that the entire range of islands may be properly characterized as an immense mountain chain thrown up from the bottom of the ocean. The highest peak is Fuji-yama, which rises to a height of more than twelve thousand feet above the sea. It is a wonderfully beautiful mountain, and is the first glimpse that one has of land in approaching Yokohama from the Pacific Ocean. Of the position which this mountain occupies in the affections and traditions of the Japanese, mention will be made in a later chapter.

The islands forming the empire of Japan are comprehended in these limits; between twenty-four degrees and fifty-one degrees north latitude, and one hundred and twenty-four degrees and one hundred and fifty-seven degrees east longitude. That is, speaking roughly, it lies diagonally in and north of the subtropical belt, and has northern points corresponding with Paris and Newfoundland, and southern ones corresponding with Cairo and the Bermuda islands; or coming nearer home, it corresponds pretty nearly in latitude with the eastern coast line of the United States, added to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and the contrasts of climate in the latter island and in Florida are probably not more remarkable than those which are observed in the extreme northern and southern regions of Japan.

FUJI-YAMA.

The most striking geographical feature of Japan is the Inland Sea, which is one of the beauties of the world. It is a long, irregularly shaped arm of the sea, with tides and rapid currents, of variable width and no great depth, studded with innumerable thickly wooded islands. It is the water area which separates Hondo from Shikoku and Kiushiu, and is often spoken of as the Japanese Mediterranean.

One or two of the rivers of Japan, such as the Sumida, on the banks of which Tokio, the capital, lies, and which is about as broad as the East River between New York and Brooklyn, are worthy of note. Here at the present time are situated several ship yards, and many modern craft built in the American fashion may be seen along the shore. Here it may be mentioned that any particular appellation given to a river in Japan holds good only for a limited part of its course, so that it changes its name perhaps four or five times in flowing a few hundred miles. Indeed the river which passes through the city of Ozaka changes its name four times within the city limits. Most of the larger rivers in the main land run a course tending almost north and south. The general contour of the land is such that they must be short, but this direction gives them the greatest length possible. There are brief periods of excessively heavy rain, and they are often then in fierce flood, carrying everything before them and leaving great plains of water-worn stones and gravel around their mouths. There are many picturesque waterfalls which attract travelers and command the admiration of native artists and poets. The rivers at a short distance from their outlets are rendered navigable chiefly by the courage and expertness of the boatmen,—who are among the most daring and skillful in the world.

Till recently little has been done to deepen river channels or protect their banks, except in the interest of agriculture. In the lower courses, where broad alluvial plains of great fertility have been formed, they are frequently intersected by numerous shallow canals, for the most part of comparatively recent excavation, but some of them are many centuries old and these have been of immense service in keeping up communication throughout the country. In spite of their shallowness and rapid silting, some of the rivers of Japan are capable of being improved so as to admit of the passage of steam vessels of the largest size, and there are fine natural inlets and spacious bays which form harbors of great excellence.