1830.
Notice of Japan in the Hái-kwoh Tú Chi.
211
when the wind is southerly, by that of Tien-t'áng. Tuima lies abreast of Tang-chau; Satungma, of Wan-chau and Tai-chau.* The produce of the land consists of gold, silver, and copper, lacquer-ware, crockery, and letter-paper, colored, or stamped with flowers and plants. The sea yields amber, haliotis, beche-de-mêr, and fine sea-weeds. The mountains of Satungma are lofty and precipitous; the streams deep and their waters cold, hence the cutlery [tempered in them] "is very sharp. Horses are also among its productions. Its inhabitants are robust. The pirates of the period Kiátsing (see page 138) were from Satungma.
When Japan first sent trading vessels to Yungkiá, eighteen Japanese fishermen were driven by the winds to China, and induced by certain bad characters to commit acts of disorder. The latter trimmed their beards and shaved their heads [in Japanese fashion], mixed up in their speech the local dialect of some distant place, and thus confederated, they robbed and plundered. Their gang was called the Wo nú, Japanese slaves, but when they were at length taken there were but these eighteen men of Japan amongst them. The vessels of that country were thereupon prohibited from trading to China, but per- mission was given to ours (the Chinese) to go to Japan, and up to the present time no ship from it has ventured hither.
† Although in passing between Púto and Chángkí, the course is due east and west, the currents are perverse, and the danger from winds
and waves so great as to have given rise to the popular saying:—
H
Jih-pun háu ho Goodly are the wares of Japan,
好貨
Wú táu nán kwo
五島
táu
But the WG tau are hard to pass.
A ship sailing from Amoy to Chúngkí, with a southerly wind, sights the head of Ki-lung (Quilon) on Formosa; to the north of which she finds the Mí-káng and Hiáng-sin seas; she next makes the Tá-shán and Tientang mountains on Sa-tung-ma, and then steers a straight course [or due north]. In one of the seas aforesaid, the surface of the water is as if it were covered with rice-husks (mí-káng), and the bub- bles of the other are like mushrooms (hiáng-sin); hence their names.
Lewchew lies to the south of Sa-tung-ma, in an E.S.E. direction. The voyage to it is computed to be 68 watches. It is the same as the
*It is not certain what all the places here mentioned are called on foreign maps. Tuima is undoubtedly Tsu-sima, an island lying northeast of Quelpaert I. in the Straits of Corea. The Wa-táu are the Gotto Is. off Nagasaki, or Cháng- kí,—a name having the saine meaning, “ Long Cape," in both the Chinese and Japanese languages. Satungma is either Tanega sima or Yakuno sima, lying off Satzuma, and regarded as dependencies of that principality.
This sentence is inserted by mistake at the foot of page 208, but is repeated here in its proper connection.
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