HEY-DA V$, SI-MO-DA. 
253 
dred feet above its level, and telling the mariner of bold 
water along their rugged sides and friendly shelter under 
their protecting breasts. 
On the right, a long, low, and curved fragment of land, 
some one or two hundred yards in width, and densely 
covered with the heaviest timber, stretched itself from 
the northern shore toward the mountain-range already 
alluded to, coming to an abrupt termination just in time 
to leave a passage of fair width opening into the inner 
harbour, and forming, with the remaining shore-line, a 
magnificent anchorage, in shape something like the num- 
ber 6. Then, to complete the panorama, astern of us, 
miles away upon the clearly-defined horizon, where the 
dark blue of the sea and the azure hue of the heavens 
joined to limit the circle of vision, loomed out the undu- 
lating land that, stretching far out into the sea from the 
downward slope of Fu-si-ya-ma’s northern side, formed a 
horseshoe bay of huge dimensions, Avhose unknown shores 
might, to our excited fancies, have contained a dozen such 
quiet anchorages as the one we were now entering. 
Reader, if you have ever entered a quiet, millpond-like 
harbour after a week or more of hard and stormy wea- 
ther, you can well imagine our feelings as we rounded up 
into this landlocked little cove, which was so perfectly 
protected that not even a ripple was to be seen upon the 
cool and shadjMooking beach. It was so totally different 
a harbour from that of Si-mo-da, so infinitely superior in 
every respect, that we could not restrain the exclamation, 
■ — “ Oh, if Commodore Perry had but selected this as 
one of his three ports of entry, ships arriving at Japan 
would at any rate be assured of safety from the elements, 
