onth for Hiogo, or Kobe, where
the squadrons of the various nations were to assemble for the formal
opening. With abundant time before us, we passed in leisurely fashion
through the Inland Sea, at the eastern end of which lay the newly
opened ports. Anchoring each night, we missed no part of the scenery,
with its alternating breadths and narrows, its lofty slopes, terraced
here and wooded there, the occasional smiling lowlands, the varied and
vivid greens, contrasting with the neutral tints of the Japanese
dwellings; all which combine to the general effect of that singular
and entrancing sheet of water. The Japanese junks added their
contribution to the novelty with their single huge bellying sail,
adapted apparently only to sailing with a free wind, the fairer the
better.

Hiogo and Kobe, as I understood, are separate names of two continuous
villages; Kobe, the more eastern, being the destined port of entry.
They are separated by a watercourse, broad but not deep, often dry,
the which is to memory dear; for following along it one day, and so up
the hills, I struck at length, well within the outer range, an
exquisite Japanese valley, profound, semicircular, and terraced, dosed
at either end by a passage so narrow that it might well be called a
defile. The suddenness with which it burst upon me, like the South Sea
upon Balboa, the feeling of remoteness inspired by its isolation, and
its own intrinsic beauty, struck home so forcible a prepossession that
it remained a favorite resort, to which I guided several others; for
it must be borne in mind that up to our coming the hill tracks of Kobe
knew not the feet of foreigners, and there was still such a thing as
first discovery. Some time afterwards, when I had long returned home,
a naval officer told me that the place was known to him and others as
Mahan's Valley; but I have never heard it has been so entered on the
maps. Shall I describe it? Certainly not. When description is tried,
one soon realizes that the general sameness of details is so great as
quite to defy convincing presentation, in words, of the particular
combination which constitutes any one bit of scenery. Scenery in this
resembles a collection of Chinese puzzles, where a few elementary
pieces, through their varied assemblings, yield most diverging forms.
Given a river, some mountains, a few clumps of trees, a little sloping
field under cultivation, an expanse of marsh--in Japan the universal
terrace--and wit