THE INLAND SEA REVISITED. 53 



harvest is worked out. Threshing is the simplest 

 operation. A gigantic iron comb is erected on a frame, 

 and a handful of corn is pulled through at a time. I 

 often examined and admired the clean way this simple 

 method did its work. Mats are spread under and 

 round the comb, and very few grains are lost. The 

 straw is tied in bundles, and stacked round trees until 

 required for thatching purposes. 



Azaleas are in their glory ; poppies and a large blue 

 campanula are also in full bloom. These flowers, 

 mixed with the fresh green fronds of the brake fern, 

 form a most charming covering to the banks and hill- 

 sides. The young chestnut and oak, now in their 

 richest spring foliage, set off against the dark firs with 

 peculiar brightness, and the picturesque villages, 

 separated only from the clear blue water by the 

 brightest of sandy beaches, combine to form one of the 

 most charming scenes imaginable. Each village has its 

 Buddhist temple, conspicuous by its size and ornamented 

 roof from the rest of the houses, marked out also very 

 frequently by some single tree of great size, or a clump 

 of camellias, and often one or two of that peculiar fern- 

 leafed tree, Salisburia adiantifolia, the foliage of which 

 turns a bright yellow in the autumn, when the seeds 

 are collected and eaten by the natives. 



