ONE:"He can hit," said Mr. Bumpus, mopping his brow, "but he's certainly an eccentric sort of individual. I called to him to run, and apparently he did not or would not hear me."The Japanese are excellent sailors, both on their junks and on the foreign ships that have been introduced to their service since the opening of the country to other nations. But the Japanese landsman has a horror of the water, and cannot be induced to venture upon it. In this respect the Japanese are not unlike the Italians, who are naturally a maritime nation, and have covered themselves with marine glory in times that are past. But the Italian landsman is ready to suffer any inconvenience rather than risk himself on the ocean, and not a more woe-begone being can be found in the world than a sea-sick Italian unless it be a sea-sick Japanese.
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ONE:"What the devil!"
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ONE:They had three or four hours to spare before sunset, and at once set about the business of sight-seeing. Their first visit was to the temple on the island, and they were followed from the landing by a crowd of idle people, who sometimes pressed too closely for comfort. There was an avenue of trees leading up to the temple, and before reaching the building they passed under a gateway not unlike those they had seen at the[Pg 406] temples in Kioto and Tokio. The temple was not particularly impressive, as its architectural merit is not of much consequence, and, besides, it was altogether too dirty for comfort. There was quite a crowd of priests attached to it, and they were as slovenly in appearance as the building they occupied. In the yard of the temple the strangers were shown the furnaces in which the bodies of the priests are burned after death, and the little niches where their ashes are preserved. There were several pens occupied by the fattest pigs the boys had ever seen. The guide explained that these pigs were sacred, and maintained out of the revenues of the temple. The priests evidently held them in great reverence, and Frank intimated that he thought the habits of the pigs were the models which the priests had adopted for their own. Some of the holy men were at their devotions when the party arrived, but they dropped their prayer-books to have a good look at the visitors, and did not resume them until they had satisfied their curiosity."Unless we die," said the Clockwork man, clicking slightly, "unless we consent to be broken up and put into the earth, and wait while we slowly turn into little worms, and then into big worms; and then into clumsy, crawling creatures, and finally come back again to the Vale of Tears." He swayed slightly, with a finger lodged against his nose. "But it will take such a frightful time, you know. That's why we chose to have the clock. We were impatient. We were tired of waiting. The makers said we must have patience; and we could not get patience. They said that creation really took place in the twinkling of an eye, and we must have patience."
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ONE:The first part of their way was through a forest, but, as they ascended, the trees became smaller and fewer, and their character changed. At the base there were pines and oaks, but they gradually made way for beeches and birches, the latter being the last because the hardiest. From the forest they emerged upon the region of barren rock and earth and the fragments left by the eruptions of the volcano. The last eruption took place in 1707, and there have been few signs of any intention of returning activity since that date. But all around there are abundant traces of what the mountain was when it poured out its floods of lava and covered large areas with desolation. In some places the heaps of scori? appear as though the eruption, whence they came, had been but a week ago, as they are above the line of vegetation, and their character is such that[Pg 210] they undergo hardly any change from the elements from one century to another.FIRING DOWN THE HATCHWAY. FIRING DOWN THE HATCHWAY.
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ONE:"Lieutenant, I--I wish I knew the whole of it."Aware that his brakes were not strong enough to avert another disaster, the Doctor deftly turned the car sideways and ran back[Pg 132]wards into the hedge. He leapt out into the road and approached the still moving figure.
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