II.] ORTHOGRAPHY OF LIU-KIU. 29 



westernmost island of the Liu-kius, and left it to the north, oui 

 destination being Napha-kiang, the chief seaport town on Okinawa- 

 sima. This island is the only one of real unportance in the Archi- 

 pelago, the others being, for the most part, of very small size. It 

 is sixty miles in length, and from five to ten in breadth, and from 

 its irregular shape and fancied resemblance to a dragon the name of 

 Eiu-kiu, or Liu-kiu is, probably erroneously, said to be derived. 

 Few places, I should imagine, have exercised the orthographist to 

 a like extent. By quaint old Purchas, who, by the way, speaks of 

 the inhabitants as being "a well-shapen people, white, politicke, 

 and of good reason," the name of the island is given as Lequio. 

 The Spanish traveller Gualle^ talks of them as the Lequeos, and 

 while to the Japanese, with whom the labials / and r are inter- 

 changeable, they are known as the Eiu-kiu Islands, they have been 

 variously written of and described by the English as the Liew- 

 kiews and Lew-chews, and finally, still more phonetically, as the 

 Loochoos. Kaempfer calls them the Liquejo islands, but if a 

 mean of these varied spellings be taken, Liu-kiu will nearly 

 approach the result, and is more correct if, as may justly be con- 

 cluded, the name be of Chmese origin. 



During the morning we were passing the numerous islands of 

 the Iverama group, which, though small, appear to be highly 

 cultivated, terrace rising above terrace with the utmost regularity. 

 The islanders are born agriculturalists, and are less dependent on 

 " the harvest of the sea " than might, from their apparent opportun- 

 ities, be supposed. Kapha-kiang is situated on the western coast of 

 Great Liu-kiu, close to its southern extremity, and the harbour, 

 owing to its being surrounded to a great extent with reefs, is a 

 tolerably safe, though somewhat restricted one. The appearance 

 of the town as seen on approaching is decidedly picturesque. It is 

 Japanese in character, yet at the same time possessed of such 

 marked peculiarities that the traveller feels at once that he is in a 

 new^ country. To the right a long, low, battlemented wall guards 



1 " Hakhiyt," vol. iii. 



