III.] ANCIENT CASTLE OF SHIUBI. 5 7 



other respects, the work appeared to us to be considerably superior 

 to that of the Japanese. Some of the walls, for example, are up- 

 wards of sixty feet in height, and of enormous thickness. They 

 are built in the form of a series of inverted arches, which, doubtless, 

 helps them greatly in sustaining the tremendous pressure of the 

 earth behind them. In the present age of large ordnance, these 

 wonderful defences would, of course, be reduced with the greatest 

 ease, but, in the old days of bow and arrow and hand-to-hand 

 fighting, they might justly have been considered impregnable. 



Passing the outer gate, the ground dips, and, amid large planta- 

 tions of the stiff- looking Cycas, a number of what nmst at one 

 time have been storehouses are visible in a state of semi-ruin. 

 The view of the second line of fortifications from here is admii'able, 

 and the path leading directly beneath the huge walls rendered 

 theu- height the more impressive to us. As is the case in all the 

 walls we saw in Liu-kiu, these slope outwards at the base in a 

 Ijold curve, which is even more pronounced than in the feudal 

 castles of Japan. At the foot of these walls, and close to the 

 second gate, we came upon a spring of water gushing from a cleft 

 in the solid rock, over which was carved in Cliinese characters, " This 

 water is very good ;" — a naive remark that a Chinese envoy on a 

 visit to the island had caused to be committed to posterity. Other 

 inscriptions, equally original in character, had been cut on the 

 rocks close by, all of which were the productions of the same 

 author, who, although perhaps not possessed of the divine afflatus, 

 appears at any rate to have been much pleased with all he saw. 

 The gateway through the second lines is of very massive stonework, 

 as indeed is the case with all. It is spanned by an elliptical arch, 

 a common feature in Liu-kiuan architecture. Within are the 

 barracks, or rather what serve as such at the present time, for we 

 discovered that about two hundred Japanese soldiers were stationed 

 there. In the large courtyard surrounded by these buildings we 

 came across a small squad of them drilling, Uyeno was evidently 

 rather disturbed at this incident, being apparently desu'ous that 



