Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/688

676 three or four hundred strong, could be seen marching off from behind the court-house to the right and left, as if intending to occupy the ground on the remaining sides of the park.

"I think they are firing at us now, sir," said Yorke presently, as a bullet came singing past, apparently close to their ears.

"Possibly, but more probably an indication of your true sepoy's ineradicable propensity to fire at the sky. However, we have seen enough for the present. But we shall want a snug place for a lookout man here. Have some of your spare sandbags brought up, to line a bit of the parapet with."

No wonder people admire Falkland, thought Yorke to himself, as he descended the staircase to execute the order; he certainly is a splendid fellow; but if she were my wife, I don't think I could risk my life in that way.

Thus the siege of the residency had begun.

 

 From The Fortnightly Review.

the far East, lying between the islands which compose the empire of Japan — that ancient and mysterious realm but recently explored and introduced into the circle of nations by the greed or enterprise of Western commerce — there ebbs and flows and sparkles, with a gorgeous beauty truly Oriental, a fair Mediterranean, known as the Seto Uchi, or Inland Sea. Though smaller by far than its namesake of the West, it has many physical characteristics much more striking. It abounds in harbours, bays, snug anchorages, deep channels, and sheltering islands. It basks in a climate almost perfect in its serenity and freedom from extremes. The mariner fresh from the chilly spring-time and ungenerous summer of our own islands navigates its waters in June with a cloudless sky, —

unprotected by awnings, and fearless of the sun, which at the same season off the Spanish or Italian coasts, beats down on those who sail beneath it with an insupportable and even deadly fierceness. Here are no tideless waters: a strong ebb and flow, running to and fro between fairy islets, and round verdant capes with almost headlong fury, purifies and freshens every inlet with an influx from the wide Pacific Ocean without. Remarkably free from storms and rain, the frailest fishing-boat is pushed fearlessly out to the mid-waters of its widest parts. No sirocco blows across it to render life scarcely worth having throughout the length of many an autumn day. In fine weather the bosom of the sea does not undulate sufficiently to rock even the smallest bark; yet there is no lack of breeze. It should be the very paradise of pleasure-seekers.

The scenery is truly lovely: a Devon foreground set in a background of the Alps. Lofty mountains bound the landscape. In summer, light, fleecy clouds hover about the higher slopes; while through dips in the stately range of heights glimpses are caught of still higher peaks beyond bathed in a violet haze, or dissolving into the misty distance. Fronting the water are pine-clad hills, with the varied and fantastic outline natural to a once volcanic region. Their sides are seamed with valleys, in which nestle pleasant villages, half hid in the variegated foliage of shady trees. The temperate zone meets the tropics in groves and coppices of pine, and fir, and camphor-wood, and graceful bamboo. Above, the lilac waves in clusters, whilst underneath the steeps are all aglow with azaleas in crimson masses. The quaint gables and high-peaked roofs of temples peer out from leafy groves, traversed by glades of brilliant green. Streams gushing from the rocks trace silvery lines upon the abrupt hillsides. Rocky promontories, festooned with creepers, and crowned with clumps of firs, jut out into the sea, and divide white sandy beaches, or form placid little coves and bays. Here a huge mass of grey granite stands out as a monument of some ancient convulsion of the soil: there a succession of grassy knolls and hanging woods undulating backward from the shore introduces a park-like feature into the panorama. Art completes the picture. The slopes of the mainland, and of innumerable islands —

are clothed with fields of waving corn, of a really golden hue in the dazzling June sunlight. The style of cultivation is high. The fields are arranged in terraces, which climb in a long series of steps the sides of hill and ravine to a goodly height above the lower ground.