168 



EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



shores, I ordered the flag to be brought, and unfurled it from the top of the rock, while the men 

 fired a salute from the base and hailed it with three hearty cheers. We bestowed upon it the 

 name of "Banner Kock." The natives looked on, unable how to understand our proceedings, 



Bauner Kock. 



hut not in the least troubled by them. A little to the north of where we were the island 

 narrowed suddenly, between the head of the eastern bay and a deep bight, which makes in on 

 the western side, between Cape Broughton and the headland bounding Port Melville on the 

 west. I judged its breadth, at this point, to be about four miles, in a straight line. To the 

 southwest I could see the position of Sheudi, eight or ten miles distant. The landscape was 

 rich and varied, all the hills being coated with groves of pine. We found on the rock the 

 "Wax plant" of our greenhouses, in full bloom, the splendid scarlet Altluea, and a variety of 

 the Malva, with a large yellow blossom. 



Continuing our march along the summit ridge, we came gradually upon a wilder and more 

 broken region. Huge fragments of the same dark limestone rock overhung our path, or lay 

 tumbled along the slopes below us, as if hurled there by some violent natural convulsion. As 

 the hill curved eastward, we saw on its southern side a series of immense square masses, 

 separated by deep fissures, reaching down the side nearly to its base. They were apparently 

 fifty feet high, and at least a hundred feet square, and their tops were covered with a thick 

 growth of trees and shrubbery. In the absence of any traces of volcanic action, it is difiicult to 

 conceive how these detached masses were distributed with such regularity, and carried to such a 

 distance from their original place. The eastern front of the crags under which we passed was 



