THE OCEAN AS A SOURCE OF FOOD SUPPLY 185 



the fishing in the Philippines seemed to me about on 

 a par with that carried on in all the rest of the East 

 Indian Isles. 



And now, as we go north, we come to what I think 

 all unbiassed and thoughtful opinion concedes is the 

 most marvellous nation in the world, Japan. Coming 

 late as they have into the comity of nations, they 

 have proved themselves to be superior in nearly every 

 respect to all other nations, even where their ideas 

 differ fundamentally. But with the nation, as such, 

 we have now no concern, only the fishing part of it. 

 Japan, like Britain, is an island nation, and at no part 

 is it very far from the sea, consequently, although 

 the land is cultivated with a minuteness of perfection 

 unknown elsewhere, the harvest of the sea is never 

 neglected, and, to the bulk of the Japanese, fish is a 

 daily article of diet. But the Japanese is not by any 

 means an omnivorous feeder like the Chinese, rather 

 is he dainty in his tastes as in his appreciation of the 

 beautiful; and so we do not find the strange, the 

 outre forms of ocean's denizens served up to the eater 

 in Japan. Still it must again be noted that, com- 

 pared with the enormous supplies of fish daily brought 

 within our reach in Britain, Japan is comparatively 

 poor, the stock of fish is exigent compared with ours, 

 which we do not at all appreciate as we ought. Still, 

 with all its drawbacks, the Japanese attend so dili- 

 gently to the harvest of the sea, that it may safely 

 be said that in no country in the world does fish bulk 

 so largely in the daily diet of the inhabitants as in 

 Japan, which is just what might have been predi- 

 cated of so enlightened and painstaking and frugal 

 a people. No doubt, since their acquisition of the 



