to get away a minute earlier than that; we therefore found the chief
steward, got him to show us our cabins, and had our baggage carried
aboard. Then we went ashore again and, Nakamura happening to learn that
the place boasted a zoological garden, nothing would satisfy him but we
must needs go there, which we did, afterwards finding our way to the
handsome Museum. Then down into the town again to lunch, finally
returning to the ship at a quarter to three. I had been accustomed to
seeing work smartly done in our own navy, but I was amazed to see what a
few hours of strenuous labour had effected upon that wharf. It was
practically cleared, and even as we stood and watched, the last cases
were slung aboard, and the first bell, warning visitors that the ship
was about to start, was rung, whereupon we trotted aboard and took up a
position on the poop, where some fifty or sixty other passengers, all
men, with about half a dozen exceptions, were already congregated.
Nakamura looked eagerly about him and quickly spotted at least a dozen
acquaintances and fellow-countrymen, to all of whom he insisted upon
introducing me; and his mention of the fact that I was _going_ out for
the express purpose of fighting for Japan at once ensured me a most
friendly welcome among them. While this was going on, the ship was
unmoored, and a few minutes later we were outside the harbour and
shaping a course that took us at no great distance past the islet which
Hugo has immortalised in his _Count of Monte Christo_.

Once clear of the harbour, the skipper rang for full speed; and the
_Matsuma Maru_, a white-hulled, steel-built ship of some four thousand
tons, rigged as a topsail schooner, soon showed that she was the
possessor of a nimble pair of heels. She was loaded well down, yet an
hour after the patent log had been put overboard it recorded a run of
seventeen knots. The weather was gloriously fine and the sea
glass-smooth, so that one had not much opportunity of judging her
quality as a sea boat, but when I went forward and, duly paying my
footing, looked over the bows and noted their outward flare as the sides
rose from the water, I had not much difficulty in deciding that she
would prove very comfortable and easy in a seaway.

Upon going below to dinner that night, a glance round the saloon tables
showed that at least seventy-five per cent, of the passengers were
Japanese, while, of the remainder, half, perhaps, were English, the re