The Land of the Morning

Front matter

The

Land of the Morning

, Based on a Four Years’ Residencein That Country

Chapter 1

.

The Country and Its People.

Situation and Extent of Japan—Mountains—Plains—Rivers—Lakes—Harbours—Soil—Extent of Agriculture—Great Forest Area—Painstaking Tillage—Various Agricultural Products—Mineral Resources—Luxuriant Flora—Fauna—Variety of Climate—Black Stream—Severe Winter—Moist Heat—Charming Autumn—Rainfall—Typhoons—Earthquakes—Population—Physical Aspect of the People—Their Origin—Their Language.

In looking at a map of Asia, one cannot but notice a somewhat crescent-shaped group of islands lying off the eastern coast, its southern extremity coming comparatively near the mainland at the promontory of Korea, and its northern almost linked to Siberia by the long ridge of Saghalîn on the north, and the stepping-stones of the Kurile islands on the north-east. This is Nihon or Nippon (i.e. ‘Land of the Rising Sun’), or Dai (i.e. ‘Great’) Nihon or Nippon, or, as we call it, Japan. This main group consists of four large islands, viz., Honshiu (often incorrectly named Nippon), Kiushiu, Shikoku, and Yezo, and several thousand smaller ones, and extends from 31° to 45° 30′ N. lat. Of the four principal islands, Honshiu is much the largest, and, being regarded as the mainland, is seldom designated by the Japanese with any special name. It is in shape an irregular crescent convex towards the south-west. From its western point, Kiushiu (‘Nine Provinces’) runs south, being separated from it by the straits of Shimonoseki, barely a mile broad; and within the angle thus formed by Kiushiu and the western horn of Honshiu, lies the still smaller island of Shikoku (‘Four Provinces’). Between Kiushiu and Shikoku on the south, and Honshiu on the north, is the Seto Uchi, the famous Inland Sea of Japan. The northern point of Honshiu comes within ten miles of the handle of Yezo, to adopt the simile which likens the form of that island to a gridiron. Yezo’s northern shore terminates in a western and an eastern point; the former of which almost touches the island of Saghalîn, and the latter the first link of the Kurile chain.

These are the limits of Japan proper; but the empire of Japan includes, in addition, the Kurile isles, ceded by Russia a few years ago in return for Saghalîn, the Riu Kiu or Liu Kiu (‘Loo Choo’) islands, the most remote of which are 500 miles south of Kiushiu, and the more slender island chain which runs south-east from Yedo bay, and terminates in the Bonin islands, 500 miles distant. It extends, therefore, from 24° to 50° 40′ N. lat., and from 124° to 156° 38′ E. long. On the north it almost touches the Asiatic continent at Kamtchatka, and on the south it comes very near Chinese territory at Formosa, while the island of Tsushima, about 55 miles off the north-west corner of Kiushiu, is within 25 miles of Korea. From Nagasaki in Kiushiu to Shanghai in China, is by steam a two days’ voyage, and the 5000 miles of ocean between Yokohama and San Francisco have been accomplished in less than fourteen days. The total area is estimated at 148,700 square miles, or at fully one-fifth larger than that of the United Kingdom.

Japan is one of the most mountainous countries in the world. Its plains and valleys, with their foliage surpassing in richness that of any other extra-tropical region, its Arcadian hill-slopes and forest-clad heights, its alpine peaks towering in weird grandeur above torrent-dinned ravines, its lines of foam-fringed headlands, with a thousand other charms, give it a claim to be considered one of the fairest portions of the earth. Beginning at the north, we find in Yezo two mountain chains, one coming from Saghalîn and passing down the west coast, and the other coming from Kamtchatka and the Kuriles and meeting the first. These contain no fewer that eight active volcanoes. The chain from Saghalîn is continued down the centre of northern Honshiu, where its principal peaks are Iwate-san or Ganju-san (7000 feet), Chôkai-san (6800), and Guwassan (6100). Further south, the Nikkô range rises in Shirane-yama to a height of 8500 feet, and in Nantai-zan to 8195. South-west of this are the active volcano of Asama-yama (8260), and the long ridge of Yatsu-ga-dake (9000), while about 45 miles south of the latter the mountain systems of the empire culminate in the matchless cone of Fuji-san, rising 12,365 feet from the shore of the Pacific. Westward of Asama-yama, there is another chain running parallel with the Sea of Japan; this culminates in the extinct, or dormant, volcanoes of Tate-yama (9500) and Haku-san (8600). Near Tate-yama, a still loftier chain branches off from this southward into the heart of the empire, dividing the province of Hida from that of Shinano, as the other divides Hida from Yetchiu and Kaga. The principal peaks of the chain are Yari-ga-take (10,300), Nori-kura (9800), and Ontake-san (10,000). It is in and around the province of Hida that the perfection of Japanese alpine scenery is to be found. The Tate and Haku-san range continues, though at much less elevation, through the western arm of Honshiu to the straits of Shimonoseki. The range on the eastern frontier of Hida also loses in height as it continues southward, but rises into impressive peaks in the south of Honshiu and in Shikoku. Kiushiu likewise abounds in mountains, several of which are active volcanoes; the highest are Aso-take and Kirishima-yama (5000).

We may think of Japan, therefore, as a land in which mountain-top answers to mountain-top, and hill-top to hill-top, throughout its length and breadth. There are, however, many considerable plains. Perhaps the largest of these is that of Musashi, the province in which Tôkiyô is situated. This stretches from the capital in at least one direction for quite 70 miles without any considerable elevation. It is not so vast, however, but that on an ordinarily clear day its gentle undulations appear bordered by a wall of blue mountains. Many of the plains are extremely flat, looking like green lakes closed in by hills. Their surface does not, as in our own country, rise in gradually increasing undulations to the bordering uplands, but remains level up to the very bases of the foot-hills. This configuration is perhaps exaggerated by the levelling of the ground for rice-culture, an operation which also shows itself in the extensive terracing of the hillsides and valleys. Tier beyond tier the wooded foot-hills rise, with possibly a blue snow-streaked ridge behind them.

The narrowness of the empire (it is less than 200 miles at the widest part) does not afford much room for large rivers. Innumerable streams there are, but they are mostly short and extremely rapid. Far from being to any extent navigable, many of them cause frequent inundations, as they sweep down to the sea swollen with the winter’s snows or with the rains at the opening or close of the hot season. Sometimes the bed of a comparatively short river is near its mouth more than two miles in width. For the greater part of the year a channel of fifty yards’ breadth may suffice; but, when there is a flood, every inch of this great space is required. There are, however, exceptions in the case of streams which flow into the wider plains and have therefore a longer and quieter route to the sea. For example, the Tone-gawa, which reaches the sea near Tôkiyô, after traversing a great part of the plain of Musashi, is navigable by steam for 30 miles. The following are a few of the principal rivers, with their lengths:—The Chikuma-gawa, or Shinano-gawa, 180 miles, rising on the borders of Musashi and Shinano, flowing between Asama-yama and Yatsu-ga-dake into the plain of Yechigo, and reaching the Sea of Japan at the open port of Niigata; the Tone-gawa, 170 miles, above referred to; the Kitakami-gawa, rising in the north of Honshiu and flowing southward for 140 miles into the Pacific at the bay of Sendai; the Ishikari-gawa, 130 miles, in the west of Yezo; the Tenriu-gawa, 120 miles, rising comparatively near the Chikuma-gawa, but on the opposite side of the Shinano watershed, and therefore finding its way to the Pacific; the Kiso-gawa, 115 miles, rising on Norikura, on the borders of Shinano and Hida, and also flowing into the Pacific, reaching that ocean near the great city of Nagoya. It is unnecessary to mention more. We shall yet have occasion to remark on the extreme picturesqueness of many of the rivers of Japan.

The lakes of Japan are less numerous than might have been expected, and most of them are small. The largest is lake Biwa, 50 miles in length, 269 feet deep, and 190 square miles in area, a magnificent sheet of water, approaching at its southern shore within 30 miles of the Inland Sea, and at its northern within 13 of the Sea of Japan. According to a Japanese legend, the basin of this lake sank on the same night as that on which the sacred cone of Fuji-san arose. It is called Biwa, from its resemblance in shape to a lyre (Japanese biwa). Other lakes are those of Inawashiro, towards the north of Honshiu, Chiuzenji, about 65 miles southward of this, among the heights of Nikkô, Suwa in Shinano, Hakone near Fuji-san, etc., etc.; but none of these is in area comparable to lake Biwa, unless it be Inawashiro, which is about one-fourth the size of that lake.

The coast line of Japan, like the interior, presents most romantic features. The traveller who has sailed round the world cannot but admit, whenever he comes within sight of these shores, that more beautiful he has never set eyes upon. But the harbours are few and mostly inferior. Altogether there are fifty-six harbours and trading-ports. Most of them are on the southern and eastern coasts. The coast washed by the Sea of Japan has no port at all favourably situated. Niigata harbour is utterly unsatisfactory on account of the sandbanks at its bar. The gulf of Tsuruga is well protected, but the entrance to it is dangerous. Perhaps the port on this coast most likely to flourish is that of Mikuni, about 50 miles north of Tsuruga, and fully 200 south-west of Niigata. There is here a considerable estuary, and the merchants of the place have lately been showing praiseworthy energy in the construction of breakwaters. Among the best harbours on the oceanward shores are those of Nagasaki, a hill-encircled ‘loch’ of great beauty, Kôbe on the Inland Sea, Miya near Nagoya, Yokohama in the bay of Yedo, and Hakodate in the south of Yezo.

We now turn to the soil of Japan. Of rocks the most prevalent are said to be the trachytic and phonolitic groups, together with hornblendic granite and a syenite; felsites and quartz porphyries come next in importance; stratified rocks are represented by an extensive series of highly silicious metamorphosed shales; and basalts are rare. The volcanic formation of the country is everywhere evidenced either by mountains in actual eruption or by solfataras, or by the sulphurous springs which well up from hundreds of the valleys, or by the still too frequent earthquake shocks. Very misleading statements have been made as to both the extent and the lucrativeness of agriculture in Japan. For instance, it used to be said that the mountains of Japan were cultivated to their summits. This was a pardonable error when, through the policy of isolation adopted by the Japanese Government, foreigners were not free to travel more than a few miles from certain treaty ports, in the neighbourhood of which the land was under thorough cultivation; but how wide it is from the truth will appear from the fact, that of the 28½ million chô (one chô=2.4507 acres) of land in Japan, less than 4½ million are cultivated. Of the remainder far the greater part is covered with forests. It is true that the plains are cultivated with extraordinary care, and that among the lower hills every spot to which water can be brought is terraced for rice-culture; but there are great mountain tracts which have scarcely been brought under the sway of man and of these, as well as of the drier slopes above and around the paddy-fields, much is capable of cultivation. Then the luxuriant verdure of the country—the most luxuriant outside the tropics—is apt to give a mistaken notion as to the fertility of the soil. We see everywhere a magnificent flora. The plains are in summer adorned with every variety of green, from that of the young rice to that of the veteran pine. The valleys luxuriate in an overwhelming mass of foliage, and mountain-slopes, for thousands of feet, are clad with an unbroken mantle of trees. Nevertheless, it is true that the soil of Japan is not naturally fertile. It is mostly either volcanic or derived from igneous rocks; in some places, as in the great productive plain of Musashi, it is directly drawn from volcanic tufa and ash. The extraordinary profusion of plants growing in a state of nature is due to the climate more than to the soil; besides, it should be noticed that these consist very largely of coniferous trees and other evergreens, plants which least of all tend to draw upon the soil’s resources. Then the productiveness of the cultivated land is largely due to careful manuring. This and the climate together make it possible for the Japanese farmer to gather two crops off one field in the same year. ‘A new field,’ says a Japanese proverb, ‘gives but a small crop,’—a saying which strikingly shows that the Japanese themselves have little faith in the natural fertility of their soil. ‘The Japanese farmer,’ says Professor Kinch, of the Imperial College of Agriculture, Tôkiyô, a gentleman to whom I am indebted for most of the information given in this paragraph,—‘the Japanese farmer treats his soil as a vehicle in which to grow crops, and does not appear to regard it as a bank from which to draw continual supplies of crops; thus he manures every crop, and he applies the manure to the crop and not to the land.’ Nowhere is there more neat and painstaking tillage than in Japan. All the sewage of the towns and villages is utilized as manure. Of the 4½ million chô under cultivation, 2½ million consist of paddy-fields, which yield on an average about thirty bushels of clean rice per acre. Among the other agricultural products are wheat, barley, rye, maize, buckwheat, millet, peas, field and haricot beans, potatoes, vetches, tares, lupins, soy beans, ground nuts, daikon (raphanus sativus), turnips, carrots, beets, mangolds, cucumbers, egg-plants, tea, tobacco, cotton, hemp, indigo, lotus-roots, onions, leeks, etc. The total produce of rice per annum is about 170,000,000 bushels, that of wheat, 35,000,000 bushels, and of barley, 55,000,000 bushels.

With all the beauty of their well-tilled fields, Japanese farms lack that softness which is so characteristic of the pasturages of England. The rearing of flocks and herds has no place in the farmers’ work, and there is therefore no cultivated meadowland. Grassy slopes there are among the hills, which at a distance may look park-like; but unless they be in the higher altitudes, where the vegetation is more like our own, a nearer view will show the grass to be long and coarse. Then it is hardly necessary to add, that the grass, as would seem to happen everywhere in the temperate zone out of Britain, becomes brown in winter.

The mineral resources of Japan are undoubtedly great; but various circumstances have prevented their due development. The methods of working which were until comparatively lately in vogue, were crude and unremunerative, and even now there are many mines which, although worked on foreign principles, yield little or no profit, chiefly on account of their imperfect communication with centres of trade. Far up among the mountains, the roads leading to them are often wretched bridle-paths, accessible only to pack-horses, by which transportation is both slow and expensive. The present Government, however, have their attention turned to the improvement of roads. The recent outlay for costly machinery, and the heavy expenses incurred in sinking shafts, constructing furnaces, etc., have also tended to consume any revenue derivable from the Government mines. Gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, sulphur, coal, basalt, felspar, greenstones, granites red and grey, marble, rock-crystal, agate, carnelian, amber, scoriae and pumice-stone, talc, alum, etc., etc., are found in greater or less quantities. Coalbeds extend from Nagasaki to Yezo. The supply of sulphur is almost inexhaustible, and of wonderful purity. The island of Sado, near Niigata, yields the largest supply of gold, and the principal coal-mine is in the island of Takashima, off the harbour of Nagasaki.

Reference has already been made to the luxuriance of Japanese vegetation. The flora consists so largely of evergreens, of which there are 150 varieties, that even in the depth of winter the face of the country is well covered with foliage. Among the most characteristic trees are various pines, the cryptomeria Japonica, sometimes attaining a height of 150 feet, the evergreen oak, firs of different kinds, the bamboo, which, with its feathery groves, adds a semi-tropical aspect to the plains, the cedar, yew, camphor-tree, ash, salisburia adiantifolia, magnolia, paulownia, persimmon, boxwood, holly, chestnut, elm, beech, maple, alder, willow, birch, mulberry, pear, cherry, plum, peach, myrtle, orange, etc., etc. The great variety in the altitude of the land gives a corresponding variety of vegetation. Thus, while in the plains the flora of the temperate zone is diversified by partially developed representatives of the tropics, such as the palm, banana, etc.; in the higher mountains there are found plants characteristic of Northern Asia, of Canada, of the Polar regions, and of some of the Alpine ranges. There are said to be no fewer than 1699 species of dicotyledonous, with a proportionate number of monocotyledonus plants. The wild flowers which delight the eye, especially in the upland regions, are very numerous; and in the cities the art of gardening is carried to a perfection that is unsurpassed. In fragrant flowers Japan is not so rich as our own country; but England cannot compare with it for flowering shrubs. The plum, the peach, the cherry, the camellia (in all of which the bloom precedes the leaf), the azalea, the wistaria Sinensis, the peony, the iris, the lotus, the chrysanthemum, etc., in their different seasons, gratify the eye with their perfection of bloom. Little attention is paid to the fruit, so long as the full bloom of the flower can be realized. Then the infinite shades of colour with which autumn decks the Japanese landscape, from the green just becoming sere, to the deep purple and vermilion of the maple and the brilliant yellow of the ichô (salisburia adiantifolia), are unrivalled except perhaps in North America. The indigenous fruits of the country are mostly poor. The best of them are the grape, the melon, the orange, the kaki, a kind of persimmon until recently peculiar to Japan, the peach, the loquat, the fig, and the pear. Increased attention is now, however, being paid to fructiculture, and in some of the principal cities an excellent variety of fruit can be obtained.

The fauna is not so abundant as the flora. Foxes, badgers, wild boars, monkeys, bears, wolves, deer, antelopes, squirrels, hares, and rabbits, are more or less prevalent. Horses and oxen are used as beasts of burden. As with us, the farm-yards are enlivened with barn-door fowls. The dogs are mostly of the one fox-like breed, and are poor-spirited animals, making a great noise at the approach of a stranger, but taking care all the time to increase their distance from him. There are domestic cats very similar to our own. In Honshiu there have been found thirteen species of snakes, but only one of these, the mamushi or trigonocephalus Blomhoffii, is deadly. It has been usual for writers on Japan to speak of the country as containing few birds, and these few not remarkable for either beauty or song. To a certain extent this is true of the immediate neighbourhood of the foreign settlements, but it is quite a mistake to suppose that the wilder parts of the country are deficient in birds. Messrs Blakiston and Pryer enumerate no fewer than 325 species, of which 180 also occur in China, and about 100 in Great Britain. In a hurried visit to Fuji-san, one of these gentlemen obtained forty-four species, besides observing a number of others. Among these were three species of thrushes and two of flycatchers, all good songsters; and he could not but remark how delightful was the chorus of birds in the early morning. In the higher altitudes, especially in the mountain ranges around Hida, I have myself often been charmed with the notes of the lark, the cuckoo, and the uguisu, or Japanese nightingale. Wildfowl are very plentiful, and at certain seasons may be seen in thousands on the castle-moats in the very heart of the city of Tôkiyô. There are myriads of crows, and hawks are also numerous. Among the specially characteristic birds are two species of pheasants peculiar to the country, the brilliant mandarin duck, the falcated teal, and the Japanese ibis. Insects are extremely abundant, at times painfully so. On the plains in summer the air is constantly filled with the ear-piercing trill of the cicada, which there supplies the too frequent lack of bird-singing.

As the empire stretches through so many degrees of latitude, its various parts differ widely in climatic conditions. In the Riu Kiu and Bonin islands the climate is almost tropical, and in the Kuriles quite arctic. But here, as elsewhere, it will be better to leave such extremes out of consideration, and confine our attention to Japan proper. In Japan, as in our own islands, we find a more moderate climate than in the corresponding latitudes of the adjoining continent. This is due not only to its insular position, and to its containing a shallow inland sea, but also and chiefly to the warm waters of the Kuro Shiwo, or Black Stream, which originating, like our own Gulf Stream, in an equatorial current, is, partly by the rotation of the earth, and partly by the coast-formation of south-eastern Asia, caused to flow northward towards the Riu Kiu islands; here a small branch passes by the west coast of Kiushiu into the Sea of Japan, but the main volume flows along the southern and eastern shores of Japan, which it bathes, until meeting a reverse arctic current (the Oya Shiwo) off the north of Honshiu, it has its course turned towards America. As a carrier of warm water from the tropics towards the poles, the Kuro Shiwo has been reckoned three times as great as the Gulf Stream. Its average width is about 100 miles, its velocity three miles an hour, and its temperature from 3° to 4° Fahr. above that of the surrounding ocean. As its waters almost exclusively wash the eastern shores of the empire, its influence is felt not only in the climate of Japan as compared with that of the mainland, but in the climate of the eastern side of Japan as compared with that of the western.

While Japan is thus favoured beyond the countries of the Asiatic mainland which lie within the same parallels of latitude, its climate is more severe than that of European regions within the same parallels, as will appear from the following figures. Tôkiyô (Yedo) lies in lat. 35° 43′ N., and is therefore in much the same latitude as Gibraltar; but, while the average annual temperature of Gibraltar is 63.1° Fahr., that of Tôkiyô is only 57.7°. The greater severity of the Japanese climate will be still more apparent from a consideration of the extremes in Tôkiyô, where, while in summer the mercury may rise to 96°, in winter it sometimes falls as low as 16.2°. Nagasaki, in lat. 32° 44′ N., has a winter extreme of 23.2°; at Niigata, on the west coast, in lat. 37° 55′ N., the annual extremes are 95° and 15.8°, and at Hakodate, in lat. 41° 46′ N., 84° and 2°. There is no part of the empire in which snow does not fall. In Tôkiyô it seldom lies more than six inches deep, but on the opposite coast it often reaches a depth of three or four feet at the sea level, while among the upper valleys of Kaga eighteen to twenty feet are common. Niigata has on an average thirty-two days of snowfall every year, and the frost there is sometimes so severe that the ice on the Shinano-gawa is thick enough to allow a cart and horse to cross it. Hakodate has still colder winters. Even at Tôkiyô there were, in the winter of 1880–81, thirty days on which it was possible to have skating, and two gentlemen passing one December morning along the eastern shore of Yedo bay, observed that the sea was frozen out from the shore for a distance of fifty yards. It should be mentioned, however, that in Japan, as in Europe and America, the winter of 1880–81 was unusually severe, and moreover, that the inner portions of Yedo bay are extremely shallow. Still, facts like these show how very far Japan is from having the tropical climate which many in our country seem to attribute to it. The winter’s cold is very much mitigated during the day by the influence of the sun, which is both more powerful and less frequently obscured than in England. Thus, while the castle-moats in Tôkiyô are often in the morning covered with a coating of ice, by midday this has generally disappeared in all but the most sheltered places. Scarcely a winter passes, however, without frost of sufficient intensity and continuance to render skating possible on pieces of water either naturally or artificially screened from the sun’s rays.

The hottest season is from the middle of July to the middle or end of September. For several weeks before and after this period rain is plentiful, some falling in torrents for five or six days in succession. At such times the climate cannot be called healthy: outside, perpendicular lines of rain steadily pouring down; inside, a musty smell,—books, boots, clothes, etc., covered with green mould,—everything more or less damp,—oneself lying down or walking about in a bath of perspiration, and feeling enervated or worse. In the warm months, the vapours carried by the south-west monsoons coming into contact with colder masses of air, become condensed into clouds or mist, and the atmosphere, although probably not dense, is yet often hazy. In the cooler months, on the other hand, the northerly winds, coming over the mountain ranges of the interior, are dry and transparent. These remarks, however, apply to the east rather than to the west coast. Spring and autumn are delightful seasons, more especially the latter, when days of almost unbroken sunshine and invigorating air may continue for weeks and even months. During the last three months of my residence in Tôkiyô, from the middle of October to the middle of January, there were only five days on which rain fell. Day after day overarched the landscape with an Italian sky, into which rose, sixty miles off, the matchless cone of Fuji-san, sparkling in a mantle of virgin snow. Even the nights were so clear that, when the moon was at its full, the sacred mountain was visible by its light. And the first of my four autumns in Japan was almost as fine. The second and third, however, were less settled. Indeed, in Japan as in England, the seasons vary considerably in different years. In a single day there are sometimes remarkable fluctuations in temperature. The 13th of May, 1877, was an extraordinary example of this: at 9 A.M. the thermometer indicated 81° Fahr., at 10 A.M. 85°, at 3 P.M. 62°, and at 9 P.M. 49°! In most parts of the country the period of vegetation lasts from the middle of March or the beginning of April until the beginning or middle of October. By the end of October the deciduous trees have shed their leaves; but the warm sun, developing the buds of such evergreens as the camellia, makes it possible, a few months later, to see flowers and snow on the same branch.

Rain may fall in any month of the year, but it is most plentiful immediately before and after the hot season. The yearly mean rainfall has been estimated at 71.5 inches at Nagasaki, 58.7 at Tôkiyô, and 57.2 at Hakodate. This is considerably greater than that of Great Britain, which I find set down as from 25 to 28 inches in places where hills do not interfere, and from 45 to 65 in such mountainous districts as Wales and the Western Highlands. The difference must be due to the generally greater violence of the Japanese showers; for, there can be no doubt, that Japan is favoured with many more rainless days than are bestowed upon England. The prevalent winds are north and west in winter, and south and east in summer. The violent revolving storms called typhoons are liable to occur in June, July, or September. Thunder-storms are neither common nor violent, and autumn fogs are equally rare.

There are few places in the empire that are not more or less subject to earthquakes. During my residence in Tôkiyô many slight shocks occurred every year; but none did any considerable damage, if we except one which overturned a chimney in Yokohama. Mr Hattori, in an able paper on ‘Destructive Earthquakes in Japan,’ calculates that during the last fourteen centuries there has been on an average one destructive earthquake every ten years. The most recent serious convlusion occurred in 1855. In that year the Russian frigate ‘Diana’ was, while lying in the harbour of Shimoda, spun round forty-three times in thirty minutes, and finally wrecked; and in Yedo 15,890 buildings were destroyed. In reference to this latter fact, however, I would have the reader remember the fragility of most Japanese houses, as well as their susceptibility to fire, which doubtless was the immediate cause of most of the destruction. There are still standing in Tôkiyô many buildings, and these of but moderate strength, which have survived uninjured the great earthquake of 1855.