ir.] NAPHA-KIANG HARBOUR. 43 



The inner harbour of Napha-kiaug is as pretty a spot as one 

 could well imagine, though from a seaman's point of view it is of 

 little value, owing to the shallowness of the water. The greater 

 part of it, indeed, is almost dry at low tide ; and as w^e float lazily 

 over the surface of the clear, still water, the endless beauties of 

 coral-land lie revealed beneath us with the prodigality of form and 

 colouring so characteristic of Xature in warmer climes ; beauties to 

 which no naturalist, however enthusiastic, no writer however 

 gifted, has ever yet succeeded in doing justice. Beyond the junk 

 anchorage a large and thickly-wooded island nearly blocks the 

 farther recesses of the estuary, the foliage almost tropically 

 luxuriant in its growth, yet nofc devoid of a certain quaintness 

 peculiar to Japan, — that quaintness which, after all, is not much 

 exaggerated by the stiff and perspective-disregarding picture of the 

 country. What is it, I wonder, that has made the dress, the customs, 

 nay, the very character of the Japanese, to assimilate so closely 

 with the scenery of the land in which they live ? In no other part 

 of the world does one realise in the same way the fact that Nature 

 can, if she so chooses, be most thoroughly artificial. The Japanese 

 does all in his power to assist her. His leading characteristic is 

 liis love of the grotesque, and he places it unreservedly at her 

 serWce, meeting her half way in producing what, if not by any 

 means always the most beautiful, is certainly the oddest scenery m 

 the whole world. His eye is for ever on the attainment of some 

 little effect. He builds a quaint temple here, and erects a Torii 

 in this or that unexpected spot. His notions on landscape 

 gardening are, we know, peculiar, but he will even carry them into 

 his forestry, and leave trees isolated on the sky-line of a hill from 

 cesthetic rather than agricultural motives. Liu-kiu is Japan just 

 as the Liu-kiuans are, to all intents and purposes, Japanese, but it 

 is Japan with its grotesqueness toned down and its stiffness softened 

 by six degrees of latitude. The inner recesses of the harbour which 

 I have just described were, indeed, as much like a scene in the 

 Malay Arcliipelago as anything else, and the little azure-blue 



