Jinrikisha Days in Japan
Ships following down the coast pass by the island of Ikeshima, the scene of an outrage even less creditable to the United States than the Shimonoseki iniquity. In 1887 the U. S. S. Omaha chose this inhabited island as the scene of target practice, terrifying the inhabitants by throwing their shells quite across the island, and maiming and killing many villagers, who, after the mimic bombardment was over, ventured down, in the pursuit of their labors, among the unexploded shells. Our Government did, indeed, offer $15,000 indemnity to the wounded survivors; but the whole affair affords one more instance of the injustice which stronger nations have always shown towards this weaker power. No British man-of-war would do its torpedo practising on the cliffs of Mount Desert; nor a Russian cruiser carelessly train its guns on the Isle of Wight; nor a German ironclad choose an inhabited island off the coast of France for a target, and expect to atone for “the unfortunate affair” with a beggarly sum of money. In view of the enormous indemnities claimed in earlier days for the death of Richardson and for the commonest brawlers of the ports, the Japanese are free to draw their own conclusions concerning the justice and good faith of Christian peoples.
As travel increases, the harbor of Nagasaki will be everywhere known as one of the most picturesque in the world. Green mountains, terraced and wooded to their very summits, have parted far enough to let an arm of the sea cleave its way inland, and chains of islands with precipitous shores guard the entrance of the tortuous reach. The town seems to have run down from the ravines and spread itself out at the end of the inlet, and temples, tea-houses, and the villas of foreign residents cling to the hill-side and dot the groves on the heights.
But Nagasaki has seen its great days, having lost its importance when the opening of the port of Kobé took
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