At The Railway Wharf, With Never A Gun To Protect Her, Lies The
Empress Of India - The Japan Boat - And What More Auspicious Name Could
You Wish To Find At The End Of One Of The Strong Chains Of Empire?
THE EDGE OF THE EAST
The mist was clearing off Yokohama harbour and a hundred junks had their
sails hoisted for the morning breeze, and the veiled horizon was
stippled with square blurs of silver. An English man-of-war showed
blue-white on then haze, so new was the daylight, and all the water lay
out as smooth as the inside of an oyster shell. Two children in blue and
white, their tanned limbs pink in the fresh air, sculled a marvellous
boat of lemon-hued wood, and that was our fairy craft to the shore
across the stillness and the mother o' pearl levels.
There are ways and ways of entering Japan. The best is to descend upon
it from America and the Pacific - from the barbarians and the deep sea.
Coming from the East, the blaze of India and the insolent tropical
vegetation of Singapore dull the eye to half-colours and little tones.
It is at Bombay that the smell of All Asia boards the ship miles off
shore, and holds the passenger's nose till he is clear of Asia again.
That is a violent, and aggressive smell, apt to prejudice the stranger,
but kin none the less to the gentle and insinuating flavour that stole
across the light airs of the daybreak when the fairy boat went to
shore - a smell of very clean new wood; split bamboo, wood-smoke, damp
earth, and the things that people who are not white people eat - a
homelike and comforting smell.
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