It Was A Splendid Day, With Foam Crests On The Wonderfully Blue
Water, And The Red Ashes Of The Volcano, Which Forms The South
Point Of The Bay, Glowed In The Sunlight.
This wretched steamer,
whose boilers are so often "sick" that she can never be relied
upon, is the only means of reaching the new capital without taking
a most difficult and circuitous route.
To continue the pier and
put a capable good steamer on the ferry would be a useful
expenditure of money. The breeze was strong and in our favour, but
even with this it took us six weary hours to steam twenty-five
miles, and it was eight at night before we reached the beautiful
and almost land-locked bay of Mororan, with steep, wooded sides,
and deep water close to the shore, deep enough for the foreign
ships of war which occasionally anchor there, much to the detriment
of the town. We got off in over-crowded sampans, and several
people fell into the water, much to their own amusement. The
servants from the different yadoyas go down to the jetty to "tout"
for guests with large paper lanterns, and the effect of these, one
above another, waving and undulating, with their soft coloured
light, was as bewitching as the reflection of the stars in the
motionless water. Mororan is a small town very picturesquely
situated on the steep shore of a most lovely bay, with another
height, richly wooded, above it, with shrines approached by flights
of stone stairs, and behind this hill there is the first Aino
village along this coast.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 279 of 417
Words from 76902 to 77169
of 115002
