A Rocky Head Like Gibraltar, A Cold-Blooded-
Looking Grey Town, Straggling Up A Steep Hillside, A Few Coniferae,
A
Great many grey junks, a few steamers and vessels of foreign rig
at anchor, a number of sampans riding the
Rough water easily, seen
in flashes between gusts of rain and spin-drift, were all I saw,
but somehow it all pleased me from its breezy, northern look.
The steamer was not expected in the gale, so no one met me, and I
went ashore with fifty Japanese clustered on the top of a decked
sampan in such a storm of wind and rain that it took us 1.5 hours
to go half a mile; then I waited shelterless on the windy beach
till the Customs' Officers were roused from their late slumbers,
and then battled with the storm for a mile up a steep hill. I was
expected at the hospitable Consulate, but did not know it, and came
here to the Church Mission House, to which Mr. and Mrs. Dening
kindly invited me when I met them in Tokiyo. I was unfit to enter
a civilised dwelling; my clothes, besides being soaked, were coated
and splashed with mud up to the top of my hat; my gloves and boots
were finished, my mud-splashed baggage was soaked with salt water;
but I feel a somewhat legitimate triumph at having conquered all
obstacles, and having accomplished more than I intended to
accomplish when I left Yedo.
How musical the clamour of the northern ocean is!
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