306 STRAITS OF FORMOSA. 



Islands we passed in a gale on the following day, and 

 on the fifth and sixth day the islands of Kiiisiu and 

 Sikokf were distanced respectively ; after that we 

 steamed along the southern coast of Nipon, until, on 

 the morning of the seventh day, we reached the Gulf 

 of Yeddo. 



A more picturesque route is that through the Inland 

 Sea, or Suwo-nada, which the Shanghai steamer takes, 

 — say, by Nagasaki, and thence through the narrow 

 channel between the islands of Kiusiu and Sikokf, and 

 that of Nipon. These three and Yesso, to the north, 

 with numerous small islands, constituting the empire 

 of Japan, occupy an area more than twice that of Great 

 Britain ; — geologically, according to Dr. Edmund 

 Naumann, they are no other than the most elevated 

 portion of an enormous chain of mountains rising from 

 the Ocean bed, no less than 27,428 feet, to the surface 

 of the sea. 



