The Japanese will soon find it
safer to "let Truth and Error grapple" in the full face of day,
for they are not slow to learn.
* * * * *
TUESDAY, December 3.
The turbulent China Sea has passed into a proverb. The Channel
passage in a gale, I suppose, comes nearest to it. We started to
cross this sea at daylight, and surely we have reason to be
grateful. It is as smooth as a mirror, the winds are hushed, and
as I write the shores of Japan fade peacefully from view. I cannot
help thinking how improbable that I shall ever see them again;
but, however that may be, farewell for the present to Japan. Take
a stranger's best wishes for your future.
Our cargo shows something of the resources of the country. It
amounts to eight hundred tons, comprising seaweed--a special kind
of which the Chinese are fond--ginseng, camphor, timber,
isinglass, Japan piece-goods, ingot copper, etc. Every week this
line takes to China a similar cargo, and the trade is rapidly
extending. This steamship company is worth noting as an evidence
of what Japanese enterprise is doing. The principal owner, the
Commodore Garrison of Japan, had a small beginning, but now runs
some thirty-seven steamers between the various Japanese ports.
Under the management of Mr. Krebs, a remarkable Dane, this company
beat off the Pacific Mail Company from the China trade, and
actually purchased their ships.
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