Islands we passed in a gale on the following day, and
on the fifth and sixth day the islands of Kiusiu and
Sikokf were distanced respectively; after that we
steamed along the southern coast of Nipon, until, on
the morning of the seventh day, we reached the Gulf
of Yeddo.
A more picturesque route is that through the Inland
Sea, or Suwo-nada, which the Shanghai steamer takes,
—say, by Nagasaki, and thence through the narrow
channel between the islands of Kiusiu and Sikokf, and
th a t of Nipon. These three and Yesso, to the north,
with numerous small islands, constituting the empire
of Japan, occupy an area more than twice that of Great
Britain;—geologically, according to Dr. Edmund
Naumann, they are no other than the most elevated
portion of an enormous chain of mountains rising from
the Ocean bed, no less than 27,428 feet, to the surface
of the sea.
CHAPTER XI.
J a p a n— Y o k o h a m a— C a t a s t r o p h e o f 1 8 6 3 — -Y e d d o— T e a H o u s e s
T c h a - ja s a n d D jo r o - ja s— T om b s a n d T e m p l e s o f S h e b a — O k i -
c h ib a s 'a— J a p a n e s e A r t , P o r c e l a in , B r o n z e , L a c q u e r W a r e , I v o r y
C a r t in g , a n d S i l k s— H a r a -k i r u — Y o k o sk a , t h e A r s e n a l— H ot
S p r in g s o f M y a n o o sh t a— L a k e o f H a k o n i— K a n a s a w a .
T h e Japanese, like their neighbours the Chinese, claim
an immense antiquity for their country, but the authentic
history of the kingdom commences with the year
B.C. 660 under the first Mikado. Their ancient creed
is Sintuism, at the present day counting probably no
more than 100,000 adherents out of a population of
thirty-five millions. This religion exists in no other
x 2