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What appears to be quite true is that theft was unknown in Oki before the port of Saigo obtained its present importance. The whole trade of Western Japan has been increased by the rapid growth of steam communications with other parts of the empire; and the port of Saigo appears to have gained commercially, but to have lost morally, by the new conditions.
It is only through the tilling of the sea that the islands have become prosperous and capable of supporting thirty thousand souls upon a coast of which but a very small portion can be cultivated at all. Enormous quantities of cuttlefish are shipped to the mainland; but I have been told that the Chinese are the best customers of Oki for this product.
*Yoshiteru's loyal sacrifice received official recognition, in 1908, on the occasion of military manoeuvres in the neighbourhood of the scene of the tragedy. The Emperor honoured his memory by bestowing on him high posthumous rank. The Oki group of islands lie in the Sea of Japan forty miles from the coast of the provinces Izumo and Hoki.
They are remarkably diminutive. I saw cows not much bigger than Izumo calves, with calves about the size of goats. The horses, or rather ponies, belong to a special breed of which Oki is rather proud very small, but hardy. I was told that there were larger horses, but I saw none, and could not learn whether they were imported.
Though Chiburishima has no kembutsu, her poor little village of Chiburi the same Chiburimura at which the Oki steamer always touches on her way to Saigo is the scene of perhaps the most interesting of all the traditions of the archipelago. Five hundred and sixty years ago, the exiled Emperor Go-Daigo managed to escape from the observation of his guards, and to flee from Nishinoshima to Chiburi.
There are no roads, properly speaking, in all Oki, only mountain paths; and consequently there are no jinricksha, with the exception of one especially imported by the leading physician of Saigo, and available for use only in the streets. There are not even any kago, or palanquins, except one for the use of the same physician.
They were both eager to get away from Formosa and back to their duty as soon as possible, and they believed they might be able to form a plan by which to bring this about, if they were not sent to Japan. He therefore informed General Oki of his decision.
Very, very short the answer was, only these words: Oki naka bune, "a boat floating in the offing." But Kane-uji guessed the meaning to be: "As fortunes and misfortunes are common to all, be not afraid, and try to come unseen." Therewith he summoned Ikenoshoji, and bade him make all needful preparation for a rapid journey. Goto Sayemon consented to serve as guide.
Tylor quotes a description of this Oki, or Okeus, with his idol and bloody rites, from Smith's 'History of Virginia' . The two books, Strachey's and Smith's, are here slightly varying copies of one original. Tylor did not find in Smith what follows in Strachey.
And then it seemed to me that I loved Oki in spite of the cuttlefish chiefly because of having felt there, as nowhere else in Japan, the full joy of escape from the far-reaching influences of high-pressure civilisation the delight of knowing one's self, in Dozen at least, well beyond the range of everything artificial in human existence.
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