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We had crossed the southern portion of the Yellow Sea, and having run down the Corean Straits, with the Loo-Choo Islands under our lee, were sailing southward upon the China Sea. It was the 2d of December, and we too were now off the coast of Cochin China. Never before had any of our little party witnessed such a gorgeous array of cloud and color effect; nor was the display fleeting.
In the early times we are told the Japanese had no written language. The language in use before the opening up of communications with Korea and China stood alone. Indeed there is only one language outside Japan which has any affinity therewith, that is the language of the inhabitants of the Loo-Choo Islands.
We ran over ridges of heavy, hard tussocks, blown bare of snow, which pitched our pulks right and left, just as I have bumped over the coral reefs of Loo-Choo in a ship's cutter. Then followed deep beds of snow-drifts, which tasked the utmost strength of our deer, low birch thickets and hard ridges again, over which we plunged in the wildest way possible.
We did not find out why Beaufort left Pa-tchsu-san, where he appeared to be one of the principal chiefs; while at Loo-Choo he appeared to have no rank whatever. August 21st. Sailed for Loo-Choo, the Royalist in Company.
On Sunday the 6th, we weighed, and although the weather was unfavourable, contrived to work out of soundings until 3 P. M., when we made sail for Loo-Choo. At daylight we found ourselves abreast of a burning volcano. Dense clouds of smoke were issuing from a peaked island, about three miles distant. We soon afterwards landed upon an adjacent island, which, to our surprise, also began to smoke.
Our sufferings and trials had taught us to appreciate these advantages: and I believe both Jerry and I were grateful for our preservation, and for the blessings we now enjoyed. We had a very quick and fine run till we were in the latitude of Loo-Choo. A gale then sprung up rather unusual, I believe, at that season of the year. It lasted two days.
The natives of Loo-choo are so similar to those of the Madjicosima group that it would be useless describing their manners and customs, the more so as we have already the works of Captain Hall and Captain Beechey, in which they are described most accurately. A great many junks were anchored in the inner harbour, their enormous masts towering far above the highest buildings.
Captain Hall's Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-choo Island. 4to. A work not less valuable for its maritime geography and science, than for the pleasing interest which it excites on behalf of the natives of Loo-choo, and the favourable impression it leaves of Captain Hall, his officers and seamen. Noord-Oost Tartarie. Par Nic. Witsen. Amsterd. 1705, 2 vols. folio.
It would, no doubt, be interesting to contrast the remains of Oriental civilization and refinement, as they still exist at the extreme eastern and western limits of the Moslem sway, and to show how that Art, which had its birth in the capitals of the Caliphs Damascus and Baghdad attained its most perfect development in Spain and India; but my visit to the latter country connects itself naturally with my voyage to China, Loo-Choo, and Japan, forming a separate and distinct field of travel.
By first visiting the Loo-choo and Bonin islands, which are under Japanese control, and mostly peopled by Japanese, he had acquired a considerable knowledge of the character of those with whom he was to deal, and had been enabled to trace for himself a policy which the result proved to be eminently just and effective.
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