The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1884-10-03
In the Inland Sea Of Japan.

Japan LuidSLuO buICo AuluIc0 MlL0b
Of scenery far surprising Lake George;
still water often almost entirely land
locked, mountains rising from the
waters edge, green and tree-covered;
islands cultivated in terraces; fishing
villages nesting on the green shore or
back among the trees, everywhere but
on the most barren mountains, whose
ribs defy flesh, q most tropical green
ness, mountains far away, hidden by
morning cloud, veiled with the forenoon
mist, blue in the moons distance, and
fading in the twilight; tropical sunsets
toned with q delicacy Of color and tint
that will ever defy the greatest artist to
copy; sky, mountain, water, all chang
ing as on you sail old volcanoes of any
height from two to six thousand feet;
hillsides fecked with sunlight straying
through the clinging clouds junks, with
their great, huge, unwieldly-looking
sterns, and great mat-sails banging idly
on their single masts; natives putting
their olive faces out of pink windows, or
thronging on the decks to see the nine
years wonder, q steamship ploughing
through their beautiful lakes; clouds,
without which mountain scenery is only
half finished; climate delightful; tenn
pies and palaces; forts battered down,
and forts defiant; messy lawns between
the mountains foot and the sea-; bays
crowded with junks at anchor; but
meuntains-aiways mountains. OF every
shape and color; hills like the chalk
hills of Old England, hills like the
sandstone of the Connecticut, hills like
the rounded coast hills of Massachu-
sets and hills ribbed and gabled like
the Sierras-all are in profusion. Take
your choice of beauty ~shouldered up
from the ocean depths into the sun
light Fancy Lake George and Cham
plain scenery for two hundred and fifty
miles, and you have the nearest smile,
though inadequate to express it. My
English friend, in admiration, exclaims,
as we round a point, and find a narrow
exit from an apparently land locked
bay, where's your Lake George now?"
The water turns green, the shores mar
row down the entrance TO q few cable
lengths. Yonder, ahead, is a reef of
rocks, leaving only two cables for our
passage, and through this we must pass.
The tide is rushing us along toward
the danger. We have come eve miles
in twenty-five minutes, railroad speed.
Our safety is in our speed, and all the
pressure bottled up in the boiler for
an hour back is given to the engine now.
The reef that was so far ahead three
minutes ago is on our beam. Seething
waters rush over the sunken rocks
abreast " dart through tne marrow
passage left us, and are at the beginning
of the worst whirlpool on the coast, If
not in the world. Everybody has been
screwing up his courage for it, but it is
no wonder our faces blancha little when
we are once In, without return we must
go through this whirling tide, capped
with white foam from the maddening
rocks below. The captain gives the
orders from the bridge, in a steady but
excited voice, and you feel that prompt
ness and the steering qualities of the
ship are her only salvation. Little cares
9 he for the native pilot in this whirl,
forty times worse than He'll Gate and
far worse than the rapids Of the
st. Lawrence. Now the ship strikes
the outer rush of the whirlpool.
Port! Hard a-portl" and the ech-
oes as il is passed forward, thunder
"Portl Hard a-porti" The three
men tug at the wheel, and the
rudder, almost immoyable against the
force of water aft, slowly obeys. Little
hope for the ship now were the steering
apparatus to be at fault for a second.
She careens heavily to starboard, the
wheels make JneIr ten revolutions, do
ing all they know, |" and slowly the ship,
getting wholly into the whirl, where
stern and bow drift equally to port, an
swers her rudder, and her nose is again
for the center of the pool. And now
she enters the comparatively still water
of the centre. Hard a-starboard I"
The nervous voices echo, "Starboard,
board, STRIP and we are through one
circumference. STEADY, as she goesln
"As she goes, sir! and we paddle, pad
die, paddlei You had not noticed the
wheels were moving q moment ago.
The buoyant native boats yonder
turn out their crews, they hold up
their arms and utter a yell Of alarm.
They never saw q ship take this
passage before. They will tell it
to their children and grandchildren,
as they troll herring xth pine
knots, and spear them over the side.
Nov be very careful" and the mate
answered "Ay, ay. sirr' and we are in
the outer whirl again. Hard a-star-
board!s and the echoes answer, and the
noble ship-you feel like patting her
and saying, Good fellow good fellow
answers; and, fairly in the current,
we are carried like q child. The ship
Is as quiet as q closed church. To our
na.uonaAaaa 4 naddIn mhaola aoom