ISLAND OF SADO. 
259 
smoking a solemn pipe ! Having propitiated 
Nicotiana and matured my plan of operations, 1 
commenced the work of destruction, when lo ! 
amoncc the vegetable debris I descried a long 
dusky leg, anon two more, and then, buried among 
the ruins, the struggling Damaster. 
Nearly opposite Niegata, in Niphon, one of the 
new ports of Japan very shortly to be opened to 
Europeans, 'there is a very beautiful island with a 
rocky iron-bound coast certainly, but the interior 
of which abounds in green trees and wooded hills, 
vdiich are separated by deep gullies, gradually ex- 
panding in their turn into rich alluvial plains 
watered by rivulets, and parcelled off into pro- 
ductive padi-fields. The name of this little island 
is Sado, and here it was that I formed one of a 
party which was bent on the shooting of pheasants. 
At first our way was by the sea-shore, over great 
level plains of rock, which seemed as if they had 
once boiled and been covered with bubbles of stone, 
which, having burst, had left circular hollows with 
raised edges. Here we found plenty of chitons, a 
