ONE:Hardly was the anchor down when our trio entered a boat and were rowed to the shore. Nagasaki is prettily situated in a bay that is completely landlocked, and affords secure anchorage to ships even in the severest gales. Doctor Bronson had been in the harbor of Rio Janeiro, in South America, and said that the bay of Nagasaki was a sort of pocket edition of that of Rio Janeiro. The hills rise abruptly from the water, and lie in terraces that seem to lose themselves in the distance. Some of the hills are wooded, while others are cleared and cultivated; and in either case there are evidences of the most careful attention on the part of the inhabitants of the country. Looking seaward the hills gradually separate until the entrance of the bay is reached; here the island of Pappenberg stands directly across the mouth of the bay, and, while seemingly obstructing it, serves as a breakwater against the in-rolling waves.
ONE:"I say we can't give it to you now," Miss Harper persisted, with a motherly smile; "we're wearing it ourselves. We've had no time to take it off. I couldn't get the boots off me last night. And even if you had the boots, the other things--""You can hardly have dreamed of the beautiful things we found in Canton cut out of ivory. There were combs and brooches so delicate that it seemed as if they could be blown to pieces by a breath; and there were boxes and card-cases with representations of landscapes, and men and animals on them so small that we needed a microscope to see them distinctly. In one shop we saw the whole tusk of an elephant carved from one end to the other so closely that you could hardly put a pin on it without hitting some part of the work. They told us that the tusk had been sent there by the gentleman who killed the elephant in India, and he was having it carved to keep as a trophy. The carving had cost six hundred[Pg 419] dollars; and if it had been done in America, it would have cost nearer six thousand. Skilled labor is cheap in China, just as unskilled labor is, and it is astonishing for how little a man can be employed on the kind of work that would bring a high price in Europe or America.
ONE:Trust you for hitting the nail on the head, Emmeline, he said. That was why."Say, Dick!" he began, as she moved away, "look here, I'm going to tell you something; Ned Ferry's in love with Charlotte Oliver!"
